Accurate Representation Of What Pharos Was Like. This Is How My Experience Felt As Well
Joshua Tree was a fantastic and very fitting setting for what Donald was clearly trying to accomplish. Being out in the middle of the desert under stars was real nice. I arrived about 8:30pm, it took another twenty minutes to park, for free, in a dirt lot. Security was a mixed experience from what I heard, different levels of pat downs.
The camp grounds was a lot more chill than I expected. It was very reminiscent of adolescent summer camps. It wasn’t anything extravagant. There were food trucks, booths selling alcohol, a very small lake to hang around, and plenty of blue lights everywhere. Around the food area there was a modest sized projector showing the premiere of Atlanta with some large mats on the floor for people to sit on and watch. There was also a neat recreational tent with loads of outlets and a ping pong table.
The merch consisted of a T-shirt that had a tribal head on the front and “Childish Gambino” on the back, a hoodie that said “Childish Gambino” on the front and the PHAROS pyramid on the back, a PHAROS poster, a blanket, and apparently there was a book that I didn’t see. At the end of the night they were sold out of most sizes and after chatting with the merch people they said that’s the only stock for the entire weekend, so Saturday and Sunday people are a bit screwed unless they preordered merch. The insider info I got was that all the “all access” staff got in because they knew people, it was all friends of friends, and such.
Overall, after about twenty minutes of walking around, my group felt like we saw all we wanted to see, and got in line.
As I’ve experienced with the crowds at Childish Gambino shows, everyone was super friendly and chatty in line. Walking through the lines everyone was high fiving everyone, people were woo'ing, someone was looking for their friend Kevin (I think?) and everyone joined in shouting for Kevin. At one point the entire crowd burst into a happy birthday song for whoever.
After some of the energy wore off, staff came around and asked people to put their phones in these pouches that clip shut in a similar fashion to the security tags you see in clothing stores. Most people were fine with it. They warned everyone that if they see a recording device you’ll instantly be kicked out of the entire venue.
So after a second security pat down, we finally entered into this pretty decently sized dome. There was about 6 projectors illuminating twinkling stars onto the entire inside of the dome. The crowd gathered around a stage with a small walkway down the center. The stage was decorated with fake mountains, lights, an illuminated triangle, and overall a desert vibe.
The entire dome had a huge echo. People occasionally chanted “worldstar”, “midnight”, “bino”, count downs, synchronized clapping, etc. The novelty eventually wore off after the 7th attempted worldstar chant.
I was right up against the gate and there were 3 shotgun microphones on the area between the stage and the gate all pointed to the crowd. Along with some 360° camera set ups, about 5 of them. Being in the front we got talked to saying that we will be filmed and if we do not wish to be, they’ll move us down the line, keeping a good view, just not in the cameras view. We signed release forms and got instructions. They were filming track 1 and track 4. Track 1 we could go nuts, track 4 same thing but in the middle of track 4 we were instructed to deadpan stare right into the cameras. And we’re told that we would “know when to do so”. We ended up not knowing when to do so. It wasn’t clear at all. No one did. Also got instructed not to move our hands close to the camera because it’ll ruin the patching.
I asked details about the filming and they said that they didn’t know what it was going to be used for exactly.
Onto the show. Weird dark ambiance played until the lights went dark, the band walked onstage wearing tribal outfits with face paint. It looked like the same band from the Because the Internet tour. I recognized the same keyboardist, and Ludwig on lead guitar. They had their place in the back of the stage, some in the mountain areas. The only new addition to the band was a 6 or so piece choir.
Donald walks up on stage, shirtless, with glow in the dark body paint patterns all over his torso and face, an orange and yellow tribal skirt, some sort of orange furry shoes, and super long dreadlocks that went past his waist. It was unreal and super unexpected. I wish I could describe his outfit better. (EDIT: Here’s a pic from this thread)
Donald’s stage presence was phenomenal. He clearly was playing a character. His movements shifted from smooth and impressive dance moves that had gotten better since his last tour, to stoic robotic movements. He often had his eyes wide and teeth shown, very animalistic. At various points during the show he’d slowly, and cryptically walk to the back of the stage, and drink some liquid (probably water) from what looked like an old tribal bowl.
The music was unlike anything he’s done. The biggest change was it was all singing, mainly falsetto, and next to no rapping. The instrumentation was also way more funk and R&B influenced. There were crazy jazzy basslines, complex drum beats, and plenty of chorus, and wah effects on the guitar. The keys were very old school synthy. There was a lot of R&B choir melodies accenting his vocals. The first four songs were very fun and upbeat, then they calmed down a bit to more slow R&B tracks one of which featured Donald repeating “don’t take my baby boy, please don’t take my baby boy” over and over with Donald genuinely looking like he was tearing up while crouched over his mic stand. Another had a 90s synth pop vibe and a catchy hook that included the word “California” which the crowd loved. The last song had an anthem vibe featuring some lyric which I think was “always be yourself, no one else can understand” repeated over and over. I didn’t catch almost any lyrics, but most of what I caught was fairly mature, a few jokes, and very uplifting and inspirational sounding. Donald also frequently shot breaths into the microphone, made weird clicking noises, and randomly would sing short notes, typically between songs with no music behind it. He was definitely playing the tribal character well.
The sound was just alright. The bass guitar was pretty overpowering, and Donald’s vocals were very washed out in the echo. They were very hard to understand. I only caught a small few lyrics. I’m definitely looking forward to the album, it’ll do the songs more justice.
However, the absolute coolest part of the show, was the dome lights. Projected across the entire dome was various desert and lake landscapes, and creepy cool tribal characters that looked like something out of a PS2 JRPG. They had various elements to them like fire and earth, and there even was dancing skeletons at one point that were cartoony and very campy but it seemed to work just fine. The visuals synced extremely well and I didn’t notice any tears between the projectors. It was amazing watching Donald sing and seeing a 4 story tall projection of a weird tribal character dancing to the music behind him. There was a visual rain at one point, a meteor shower, and thunder, all of which were atmospheric. The last song, Donald slowly walked off stage with the band playing while everyone looked up to stars shooting downward, giving us all the feeling like we were flying upwards, with planets flying by, going faster and slower to the music, all leading up to us flying into our solar system, and directly into the sun with the entire dome going white and illuminating everyone’s outstretched hands into the air. It was amazing.
Now the last aspect of the show, the crowd. Most people were not too into it. Some people were vibing. Because the Internet shows had a more energetic crowd, maybe it being a midnight show didn’t help. Overall it got mixed feelings from my group, and others. Walking around after the show I was chatting with my group about it and some dude angrily walked by and said “it sucked”. Surprised I shouted back “it really wasn’t that bad” and he continued pacing away and said “no, it fucking sucked”. A big aspect of the crowd not being too into it is obviously that no one knew any of the words. That’s kind of obvious. Another prediction of mine is that if the album was released before the show, the only people who would of attended were people who enjoyed the new and different sound. The show was definitely insanely hyped up, and it was still, by all means, amazing, but it just fell short of living up the huge hype generated for the event. I still greatly respect Donald’s creativity because it was beyond unlike any show I’ve been to. I do not regret going one bit, even though I do recall feeling a bit bored or unenthused during the middle of the set where I felt like it sort of lost its hype. It started great with insane visuals, got a bit slow and the visuals became stale, and then ended on a high with an unreal feeling of flying through space.
I feel like the show just lacked a tiny bit of polish, and didn’t turn out to the potential it clearly had. Due to how ambitious and out there it was, if it wasn’t completely on point, it’d be perceived as a bit cringey and full of itself, and it only very rarely felt that way, it was mainly pulled off. It was very clear what Donald was going for, you could see the intentions and it’s very original. Another aspect that didn’t live up was the app. I thought there would be more app interactivity similar to the Because the Internet tour. There was no clear reasoning at all for the frequency color (blue) besides all the blue lights, or the “name of this PHAROS is”. I almost feel like there was a bigger purpose to it all that faced complications. There was a strong recommendation to bring a battery pack, and keep a fully charged phone, but I ended up not coming close to needing a charge.
Overall the show was about an hour and a half, no opener, no encore. It ended to a pre-recorded female voice saying “thank you for attending PHAROS, please exit now” or something like that. I think I enjoyed the Because the Internet tour more, but this was still a unique and very worthwhile experience. I hope by the Sunday show there’s more polish. This is Donald’s most ambitious work yet, and I think he didn’t pull it off as best as he could. I have no doubt in my mind it’ll have heavily mixed reviews amongst critics and fans. But I’m sure the type of fans that view this sub are going to love the album for its creativity and unique sound.
One aspect that was awesome was how in sync Donald was to the music. He’d do the smallest movements right to the beat of the band. One song he perfectly ended by snapping his fingers right as everyone stopped, timed so perfectly you could hear his unmic’d snap. Another song he randomly goes “just the drums” and freezes with his hand outstretched to the drummer, and stares and compliments him, then robotically pivots right and goes “now the bass” and the bass riffs over the drums, and so on. Him and the band were super tight rhythmically.
Another cool moment was in the middle of one of the slower tracks, Donald walks to the back of the stage, and Ludwig starts walking up the stage doing a really weird funk guitar solo with the weirdest, synth pedal, wah type sound on his see-through body guitar. Plenty of spaces between the notes, plenty of chromatic notes, almost sounded like he was fucking up badly and an amateur but that’s just that funk/jazz style. He also had the similar robotic movements with wide eyes and moved to his solo, and stumbled around the stage, eventually slowly chromatically working his way down the fretboard at the stumbling speed of his slow, drunk, stumbling down the stage back to his spot. Crowd loved it.
dededos
titsay
annaxmalina
origamiaround
vaporwave
areudirty
