18-year-old Kid Laroi has been making waves. Hailing from Australia, he first came up in the SoundCloud scene in the same vein of emo trap music as artists such as JuiceWRLD and Lil Uzi Vert. However, his career then skyrocketed once he made his pop hit “Stay” with Justin Bieber. Now, after a delay because of illness, he sets off on his first international headlining tour “The End of the World”, and on August 12th, had his first of two nights of shows at the Hammerstein Ballroom.
The show opened with artist Eric DOA. While a short set, around 15 minutes, it’s clear he is a very appropriate complement to Kid Laroi, making music rooted in the same blend of pop punk and Southern Trap that artists such as Kid Laroi prides themselves on. He could keep the crowd energetic and gave a memorable introduction to his music for the crowd to further explore on their own.
After some time to set up the stage, Kid Laroi came on. Kid Laroi began first with the genre of songs that he first made, the signature emo trap crooners that have and continue to dominate SoundCloud. If you’re mostly familiar with his Justin Bieber collaboration, the songs may be off-putting, but they’re incredibly endearing songs about love and heartbreak that play super well into the crowd he values. He also brought out a drummer and a guitarist, although it should be noted that like many other hip-hop artists today he performed with a backing track courtesy of the DJ, which makes sense to do so as he is relatively new and this is his first major tour.
Most songs he performed were from his debut album “F*CK LOVE”, and they allowed him to keep an energetic crowd going as he showed a mix of rapping and singing. Kid Laroi writes songs that are roughly 2-3 minutes, and it helps him as he’s able to perform a wide breadth of songs and keep momentum throughout the show.
Of course, he then closed off with the hit song “Stay”, and naturally it was the song with by far the highest audience participation. Afterwards, he had an interesting encore in which he went to the balconies of Hammerstein Ballroom. From there, he performed two songs – “WITHOUT YOU”, an acoustic mega-hit, and luckily for a New York crowd his new track with Fivio Foreign, “Paris to Tokyo”.
Overall, Kid Laroi shows a lot of potential for his first tour, and one can hope he will refine his craft and expand his scope as his career only continues to grow.
