So a little while back, Machine Gun Kelly, with support from Avril Lavigne, stopped at the T-Mobile Center in Kansas City, Missouri.
The tour was interesting, being billed as Machine Gun Kelly’s last tour as a “pop punk” artist, before his return to the hip-hop world.
The opener, a new kid on the scene who calls himself iann dior (all lowercase stylized) opened the night, being his last stop on the tour. The previous weekend, he had failed to show up to a scheduled date, only allowing the venue to know about ten minutes before he was to go on. This is highly unusual, especially when you are opening for two major names in the music industry, and when the tour was almost completely sold out at every stop.
The other issue with iann dior is the fact that there was rumors of him lip syncing to his own tracks. This was made evident between him singing and talking into the microphone; where the volume of him talking was noticeably louder than when he was singing. The difference was so striking at times one almost had to put almost double protect their ears when he was talking, verses hardly having to put protective ear plugs in while he was singing/his band was playing.
Next on the bill was Avril Lavigne. She had just come off her headlining tour, and reported liking the fact that she was no longer having to deal with the hassles of headlining. Her set, while coming off seeming a little short in songs, was fantastic. Lavigne left the nearly packed T-Mobile Center wanting more than she gave. It had been a number of years since her presence was felt in the Metro area, and let’s hope that we see the return of her sooner rather than later. Her set list included her hits like “Complicated”, “Girlfriend” and “Sk8er Boi”. When she was done, nothing was left but the giant balloons and streamers that fell from the sky during the set.
Last on, the headliner, was Machine Gun Kelly. Kelly delivered to his fans, starting with a fantastic special entry, with a prop helicopter moving from the stage to the back of the floor, to the VIP section where a ladder was lowered down and a trap door was opened, to which Kelly was lifted and the set was started. Kelly hung off of the ladder and sang an intro to his set to a crowd that was in aww. The rest of the set was what it was billed for, a list of songs that left the crowd wanting more by the end of the night. There was a noticeable absence from friend and drummer Travis Baker, which the crowd did not seem to either mind or notice. Kelly did pull on dior for one last duet before the singer left the tour. During this song, Kelly brought out a huge blunt and lit it up, ultimately (with the encouragement to the rest of the crowd to light up) hot boxed the entire T-Mobile center.
