The first time Travis Scott hit the Twin Cities was in 2013 on the tiny stage at The Cabooze. A little more than a decade later, Cactus Jack was back and lighting up a sold out Xcel Energy Center on Saturday night with his Circus Maximus Tour. This is being billed as the “Highly anticipated, never duplicated, second leg of the Utopia World Tour”.
There were several openers, Veeze, Skilla Baby, and Babyface Ray. They got the X bouncing and in the mood for the main event.
Let me start by saying I have never seen a stage take up so much real estate on the floor of the X before. The multi level, sprawling set, looked like the remnants of some long-lost dystopian wasteland. The sound of crickets between sets gave way to DJ Chase B dropping the opening refrains of “Greetings From Utopia” and then it was on, a ceaseless assault of the senses that went on relentlessly for 2 hours. Amid a barrage of pyrotechnics, Travis Scott shot up from under the stage and, as if from mid air, broke into “Hyaena”. The response from the X was insane, you could feel the floor shaking to the bouncing crowed and the thunderous bass. Smoke hung thick in the air as Travis transitioned through “Thank God” and “Modern Jam”. He did a couple of his colabs next. “Aye” by Lil Uzi Vert and Playbio Carti’s “Backrooms”.
The serpentine stage was like a living portion of the show, and it provided the canvas forconstant flames, strobes and smoke. Scott used the entire length and breadth, deftly hopping from section to section, giving everyone in the house a chance to be “close”. The production was off the chart amazing. At one point, the ancient looking store heads would appear to float, spray the crowd with it’s laser eyes. The “parsail” would also take a couple of lucky fans on the ride of their lives. The whole set up was literally like an ancient AstroWorld Camp Snoopy. And let’s not forget the bass. The bass was like the second performer, disrupting internal organs and reshaping the molecules of the structural elements of the X. I suggest the X maintenance crew undertake an engineering evaluation of the building on Sunday morning.
The set was heavy with his latest release Utopia, with roughly a dozen songs from the dropmaking it live Saturday night. But Scott also went deep into his archives, shouting out to his “day one’s” for some love with cuts like “Mamacita”, “Upper Echelon” and “Nightcrawler”. “3500” and “Maria I’m Drunk” seemed to hit the crowd the hardest of the “oldies” Scott broke out. “Circus Maximus” really highlighted Scotts vocal range, and he kind of used the refrain as a singers version of a guitar solo. As the synthesizer lines of “FE!N” started trickling through the house monitors, the crowd at the X seemed to explode. While there was modest moshing going on most of the night, “FE!N” had the floor in full mosh mode. Scott used this energy to do a kind of call and response between different sections of the X, making sure everyone felt they were part of the show. And while the set may have been winding down, the energy never did. “Sicko Mode” and “Goose Bumps” had the X shaking like they were the first two songs of the set. The show ended with “Telekinesis” and from the ring of monitors that hung from the ceiling you could see Scott retreating down the belly of the arena and into the dressing room.
Clearly, Scott had left everything on the stage. And so had the crowd at the X, after a nearly 2hour straight neurological barrage.
