By: Emil Jraissati
On a late Texas summer evening on the lawn of White Oak Music Hall, Omar Apollo brought the heat with his God Said No Tour in celebration of his latest album of the same name. Apollo’s career has taken him from the small upstairs room at White Oak Music Hall to the sprawling lawn with his biggest crowd yet. Throw in dancers and choreography, props and lighting, and a good amount of booze, and you have a show that starts on a high note and ends somewhere else. Where’s the line between polished performer and raunchy rockstar? And at what point on this spectrum of live entertainment does the art become overshadowed by the artist?
Smoke fills the stage. Lights flicker. Apollo appears center stage, dawning a voluptuous fur coat. On either side, he is flanked by a set of fierce dancers. He opens the show with Be Careful With Me, a song that acts as both a warning and a plea. He glides across the stage with ease as the lights reflect on his bedazzled boots, singing “Every time I see you on my phone / Hate that I still need you in my life” from the lead single, Spite. His energy is raw and charismatic as he hypes the crowd up. He keeps things moving with two of his dancier tracks, Less of You and Done With You. Amidst the dancers and the lights, he commands attention with his clean choreography and serenade-like singing.
As things slow down, he encourages the crowd to light up the night sky with their phones as they sway back and forth to Petrified, a haunting song from his first album that lets Apollo show off his vocal range. The vibes settle into a moody atmosphere, and Apollo does a good job at making it feel like we’re still in that intimate space in the upstairs venue. He even lets us in on a little secret. “Houston, I’m drunk as fuck,” he says between songs. The audience giggles, and cheers are heard sporadically. No one is quite sure what to do with this information, but the show continues with one of Apollo’s Spanish songs, En El Olvido, which the crowd sings loudly with him.
As he preps for his next song, Apollo reminds the audience of his state of intoxication. He tells everyone to “make some fucking noise” and to “gas [him] the fuck up.” Party! He breaks out one of his big hits, Endlessly, with the lyrics projected on the screens behind him. He shouts over the instrumentation, reminding the crowd that they better sing along with him. As the night progresses, this becomes a recurring segment—reminding the audience he’s drunk (he even said faded at one point, that was nice) and then pushing the crowd to be louder. What started out as a fun bit is now becoming an obstacle to the completion of this show.
He disappears for a bit and reemerges in a new outfit, going from an off-white short-suit ensemble to black pants and a silver-plated 3-D printed top that resembles body armor, ready for war but with a sexy twist. Very nice. (There’s a TikTok somewhere about the artist he commissioned to make the body piece; it’s pretty neat.) He is standing atop a platform with four beams of light surrounding him. He leans, and the lights lean with him. He then grabs one of the light beams, almost as if he could take it and use it. It’s cool. Then a glowing orb descends from above, and he pushes it, watching it swing side to side, only lighting his face when it passes in front of him. Also cool.
Things seem to wind down, but as the curfew approaches for this outdoor venue in a residential neighborhood, he is pressed for time to finish his last few songs. He mutters something about the fact that he’s spent a lot of time talking, so he can’t do all of the songs on the setlist, but thankfully, he’s able to sing his biggest hit, Evergreen. The crowd loves it, and everyone sings along with him—one last kumbaya.
He hit the marks. The dancers complemented his singing. The lighting design and set interacted nicely with the overall direction of the show. But it felt like he got in the way of himself. Maybe it was the booze. Maybe it was the heat. Maybe he’s still longing after the guy he’s singing about in these songs. Or, more likely, it’s a combination of all three. Either way, he showed up and did his job. Some might say that drinking comes with this kind of profession, and there’s some truth in that. Some might also say that watching someone get up and do the exact same thing every night with little to no room for error isn’t fun, either. So, where’s the sweet spot here?
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