Future excites, underwhelms all at once at SPAC

In terms of marquee, relevant hip-hop acts a venue could bring in, Future is near the top of the list. After a half-decade of solid-to-excellent albums and mixtapes, the Atlanta-based trap rapper finally became a full-fledged pop star this year with the back-to-back February releases of “Future” and “Hendrxx.”


Both albums debuted at number one on the charts, and Future has ridden their success to new heights. Just over a year ago, he headlined Parkfest at UAlbany for, at most, a few thousand college students. On Wednesday night, he brought his “Hendrxx” tour to SPAC for an audience of over 20,000 vocal fans.

While the crowd was vocally enthusiastic throughout the bulk of his time on stage, Future managed to simultaneously entertain and underwhelm. While his 75-minute set was big on energy due to its steady use of high-octane Metro Boomin-produced bangers, the show often felt like a 30-song medley of incomplete singles and snippets of collaborations than a proper concert.

Playing on a stage that consisted of a massive video screen, two empty turntables and 3 to 4 dancers, Future ran through 19 songs in about 30 minutes. After opening with parts of new jams “Draco,” “Rent Money” and “Super Trapper,” Future blitzed through a couple bars of “Itchin’” and the chorus of Ace Hood’s “Bugatti.” All these songs were kind of awesome in terms of energy and spectacle, but in terms of actual performance were over too fast to really gauge anything in terms of quality or skill.

It wasn’t until the 10th song, “Thought it was a Drought,” a tale of Actavis-and-codeine-induced group sex, that Future’s slurry delivery and charisma as an MC really shone through. It was a fleeting moment, as he soon returned to just dropping a couple lines from his own songs and choruses from collaborations with A$AP Ferg and Drake.

After that the energy ebbed, as Future departed the stage for 15 minutes while a hype man worked the crowd and an unseen DJ spun a couple Future tunes. It was a detour that killed off a bit of the crowd’s energy and felt like a needless break, since Future hadn’t done all that much before that.

When he returned, Future tore through another handful of songs that didn’t really pick up steam until he ripped “My Savages” and “Wicked” off his “Monster” and “Purple Reign” mixtapes. After these, the crowd’s energy picked back up and he closed with a devastating triad of “F--- Up Some Commas,” “March Madness” and his biggest hit, “Mask Off.” It was the last that drew the biggest response and had myself and thousands of fans roaring, “Mask on, (Bleep) it, mask off!” repeatedly as the show ended.