Concert Review - “The Fall Off Tour” by J. Cole

I had the honor of attending J. Cole’s Fall Off tour, and let me say, he is HIM. I supported Cole's decision not to partake in the beef. What’s understood doesn’t need to be explained; argue with yourself. Anywho, moving on, I want to thank Dreamville, J. Cole’s PR team, and Cole himself for allowing the small pond publications access to capture the show.  I am healed for the rest of the week.

 Let’s dive in, shall we?  

Okay, so boom, “39 Intro” off rip, starting off with what I love: the crowd walks, but the man takes it to another level;  he is IN! The crowd is not just walking past but interacting with the people in the stands while surrounding him. I’m in the pit trying to lay eyes on him in the chaos so I can capture that picture. Then straight into “Two Six,”  and the crowd is going absolutely insane, turning all the way up with him out there. Loved to see it. 

He made his way to the stage. I was trying to capture him, and it was like he was doing zoomies from one end of the stage to the other; the energy was high, the mic was on, duh, and y'all better know he had a band. They weren’t visible, but baby, I could tell, and later on in the show it was confirmed.

The last time I saw Cole was at the “For You Eyes Only” tour at the Palace of Auburn Hills; talk about nostalgia. 

This show was way overdue for me, and I had the best time. Pictures are done; I’m heading to my seat and turned off professional Lori and turned on fan Lori. It’s like he knew what was going on because as soon as I got to my seat, “A Tale of 2 Cities” dropped, and I lost it along with everyone around me. The stage was set up with the Market House, a historical building he is from, and he explained that he wanted to take a piece of the Ville everywhere he went; of course, the car, his trusty-dusty Honda, was there.

My favorite moments of the show: when he performed “Old Dog” Carolina-ish, he provided everyone in the building with merch towels (thank you for that, Cole; I was sweating a lot), and what did we do with them during this song? You guessed it: twisted it around our heads, spinning it like a helicopter, as he ended the song playing tribute to Petey Pablo’s “Raise Up”. The next favorite moment was when he was performing “A Lot,” and I loved how his picture on the screen multiplied every time the words "a lot" dropped. Then it was time for “come up.” he scanned the crowd and asked who wanted to be on the screen going bar for bar with him, acknowledging and speaking to multiple fans. He ended up picking a young dude in the higher-up level, and he killed it. My last favorite moment is when he finished performing “Life Sentence,” and as Cole was talking about the next song he was about to get into, he got word that a young man was proposing to his girl-  congratulations!

J Cole did his big one with this tour. He did about a third of the entire Fall Off album, and I could tell this was personal for him; this is a passion project for sure. He took us back and tested our day-one loyalty and performed songs such as “2 face,” “in the morning,” “wet dreams,” and more. He jokingly ended the show at one point and said, “Detroit, thank you and have a good night,” followed by “you know that’s cap,” and the hits proceeded. He ended the show testing us again, lol then moved into his second from last song “Role Models” and by this time my voice was already gone, but I rapped it to the top of my lungs anyway, he ended the show with “Quik Stop” as he explained that he was being selfish again and this one was for him meaning that when he looks back at this tour 20 years from now and he sees the setlist he can just say damn I really stood up and did songs for 20,000 people at a sold out show and they were here for it and they were rocking with me.  So yeah, I had a ball. Goat……