As fall descends upon cozy Evanston, Northwestern students got riled up for one of the last collective celebrations of fall quarter: A&O Productions’ annual Fall Blowout concert, held last Friday.
With previous headliners like Childish Gambino (2013), Aminé (2022) and most recently Dayglow and Justine Skye (2023), Fall Blowout sets the precedent for events like Spring Blowout and Dillo Day, the largest student-run music festival in the country.
This year’s lineup consisted of Grouptherapy, a band made up of Jadagrace, a child Nickelodeon star most known for The Jadagrace Show, and Coy Stewart, known for his role as Troy in Nickelodeon’s Bella and the Bulldogs. This year also boasts Rico Nasty as the headliner, most acclaimed for her intense new metal approach to rap.
Sporting just under 250,000 monthly listeners on Spotify, Grouptherapy’s lower profile was unrecognizable from their set. Their energy and stage presence truly impressed me, and the crowd responded in kind. The band’s 40-minute performance featured some of their original songs like “Disco Pantz,” “FUNKFEST” and “Nasty.”
With catchy choruses, Grouptherapy’s opening performance was a highlight of the concert. “Grouptherapy got everyone really excited for Nasty and kept up the crowd’s energy until her performance,” said Communication second-year Francesca Fischer, a concert attendee.
I appreciated the emphasis on the upbeat groove of Grouptherapy’s discography, which made up for the lack of lyrical engagement from the crowd. The band was a special opener, and their energy and dancing made students feel comfortable with the new music and encouraged students to go check out their newest album, i was mature for my age, but i was still a child. The album reflects on the band members’ experiences in the spotlight at such young ages.
The constricted crowd did not have to wait long for Rico Nasty to appear, with her walkout pumping up the crowd with remixes of Drake’s “Rich Baby Daddy” and Chief Keef’s “Faneto.”
“The energy in Welsh-Ryan was fantastic, and it was amazing seeing the student body engage with Rico,” said Communications second-year Grace Glowczewski.
Nasty’s 75-minute set on the stage included hits like “OHFR?” as well as “Smack a Bitch,” “Pussy Poppin” and “STFU.” However, it also included songs that were clearly foreign to the Wildcat crowd, and the liveliness quickly shifted. The shift openly affected Nasty as her stage presence faded after her first half-dozen songs.
The crowd stagnated due to her setlist. Nasty played lesser known songs, like her collaboration with Schoolboy Q on “Pop” instead of her iconic feature on Kali Uchis’ “¡aquí yo mando!” with 49 million streams on Spotify. The organization of her songs also proved to be a stumbling block, as she waited to play her iconic hit “Smack a Bitch” until the middle of the show, when the crowd was already influenced by Nasty’s lack of enthusiasm.
The incessant crowd requests for Doja Cat’s “Tia Tamera” worsened Nasty’s already slipping attitude. “Tia Tamera” is not only not part of her discography, but represents a retired sector of her music. It was abundantly clear that Nasty wanted to highlight her newer songs to showcase her growth as an artist, while the crowd desired the reminiscent nature of her older music.
The screaming advocacy for the song caused the DJ to cue the track, and the crowd erupted for the entire 3-and-a-half minutes while Nasty stood silently on stage with the microphone at her hip.
Weinberg second-year Kenneth Stewart said that while “her opening was super hype, the following songs didn’t match the energy.”
The combination of Nasty’s growing discomfort with a crowd constantly reminding her of an expired era of her career and the crowd’s lack of knowledge of her newer discography made what could have been an explosive headliner a tame performance, quieting a normally energetic crowd. With Fall Blowout consistently distributing fewer tickets than its Spring Ball counterpart, one can only hope that Spring 2025’s lineup will be more action-packed.