The Happy Camper Tour

Good Day Everyone!

I'd like to start this by saying that at every concert I have attended over the past few weeks for my research I have had the pleasure of experiencing new things that I had never seen happen at the Marquee before. And out of every concert, Hoodie Allen certainly takes the cake (pun intended) for the most unusual performance.

So on Valentine's Day, I open-mindedly headed over to the Marquee Theater for The Happy Camper Tour. I'm not going to lie, I am not a big Hoodie Allen fan, and I was kind of bummed out that some artist I had never listened to was going to be my fiftieth concert. The line outside the venue extended past the parking lot and began forming several hours before doors were opened at 6:00 p.m..

Hoodie Allen is an (All) American Jewish, independent rap artist who self-released his first album All American in 2012. That album featured his hit song No Interruption. You only continue to gain success with the release of his Next full length album people keep talking in 2014. At the beginning of this year, 2016, he released his most recent album Happy Camper.  

The night finally began with a performance by another rap artist, that goes by the name Blackbear. I personally had never heard of him before but apparently he is fairly popular with the BASIS crowd. He performed well, but seeing as he was the first opener he had a pretty standard performance. He was followed by an artist named Super Duper Kyle. His performance was very unique. The stage was dressed with 8-bit props that were based on video games like Super Mario and Pokemon. The performance started with a light saber battle, featured many many choreographed dance moves, and at some point included a massive pikachu costume. The crowd seemed well engaged and receptive to the SuperDuperKyle’s performance.

After the two opening acts came the headlining performance. Hoodie Allen sang an eighteen song set. The set began fairly unoriginally, with him performing his songs, but a couple songs in, it started getting weird. He ran off the stage and across the floor to the lights and sound station, where we stood on the railing and energetically threw two large Costco sized cakes. I guess it had some relevance to the song, but I was too shocked that the general manager of the Marquee Theater had allowed the musician to throw cakes around the venue.

For the first half of the night there was a tall guy standing behind my friends and I. He looked like he was probably a student at ASU. Either way, he was wearing a very distinctive green tunic and smelled pungently of marijuana. At some point he disappeared and the next thing I knew, he was on the stage dancing in a style I could only describe as interpretive next Hoodie Allen himself. The dancer was up there for a good ten seconds before anyone did anything about him; and when he was finally addressed, he was removed by Hoodie Allen’s onstage DJ. Hoodie Allen himself remarked on the event, chanting that security shouldn’t get paid that night.


Obviously there was a substantial breach in security. What happened exactly I can't be sure of, and security members of the venue made no comment. This is definitely something I will be considering in my research as I move forward.

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