Photos by Dan Garcia
by Dan Garcia
There is something thrilling about seeing the first night of a tour. The setlist has not been fully spoiled yet. The production is still a mystery. Every entrance, lighting cue, outfit change and transition feels like part of a larger reveal. For fans, that can make an opening night feel special, almost like being let in on a secret before the rest of the world catches up.
But experiencing a show on opening night is great until it isn’t…
That was the tension hanging over A$AP Rocky’s “Don’t Be Dumb” World Tour opener Wednesday night at the United Center in Chicago, a show that was often visually stunning at times, occasionally exhilarating, and far more uneven than it probably wanted to be. Rocky came armed with one of the most interesting
arena rap productions in recent memory, a sprawling 38-song performance, a massive catwalk, tons of pyro, lasers and a gritty dystopian world built in the middle of the arena floor. He also came with technical issues, pacing problems, visible frustration and a crowd that needed more coaxing than one might expect from a major tour launch in a massive market.
The result was a fascinating but messy first chapter. At its best, Rocky’s Chicago opener looked like a full cinematic statement for the “Don’t Be Dumb” era. At its weakest, it felt like a rehearsal that accidentally happened in front of paying customers.
Rocky did not begin the concert on the main stage. Instead, he appeared high in the United Center’s 300 level, tucked into the nosebleeds under a metal detector, performing through a megaphone/microphone hybrid with his SWAT team dancers. From the rafters, a black and white helicopter hung above the arena, dimly lighting him from afar and immediately tying the night to the paranoid, militarized, surveillance-state imagery that would define the show.
On paper, it was a bold opening. In execution, it felt oddly muted.
The idea was undeniably cool. Rocky starting the night away from the main stage, almost like a fugitive broadcasting from inside the building, fit the grimy chaos of the tour’s visual language. But the
moment never quite landed with the force it needed. From a distance, the entrance was difficult to fully absorb, and the energy in the building did not explode the way it did during his helicopter entrance at Lollapalooza last summer. That Grant Park moment felt immediate, theatrical and larger than life. This one was more interesting than exciting, more concept than payoff.
Once Rocky made his way into the actual production, the scale of the show became much easier to appreciate. The stage design consisted of two ends of a giant catwalk, with a square stage in the middle and a gritty, dystopian structure built around what looked like a rusted industrial bunker or military outpost in the middle of the arena floor. It looked like a decaying rooftop command center dropped into the center of the United Center.
Rocky’s stage design looked less like an arena set and more like a rusted industrial compound. Perched atop a weathered metal bunker, surrounded by railings, antennas, smoke and harsh lighting, he commanded the room with a megaphone like a ringleader broadcasting from the end of the world. It was grimy, cinematic and intentionally unpolished, a perfect visual match for the darker, more chaotic energy of the “Don’t Be Dumb” era.
That visual world was easily the strongest part of the night. The catwalk gave Rocky room to move, but it also made the entire arena floor feel like part of the show. Pyro erupted throughout the performance, lasers cut through the smoke and the harsh lighting gave the production a dirty, industrial texture that avoided the glossy sameness of many arena rap tours. This was not a sleek spaceship. It was a bunker. It was a war zone. It was a broadcast tower after society collapsed.
Rocky dressed for that world too. He wore a loose
guerrilla-streetwear look built around oversized layers and a white graphic oversized T-shirt, with a white wrap covering his face for the first part of the show. He did not unmask himself until roughly an hour into the performance, keeping the early portion of the night visually mysterious and slightly menacing. The look worked with the production, placing him somewhere between
rebel commander, fashion-world survivalist and underground pirate radio host.
The problem was that the show around him did not always work as cleanly as the aesthetic.
Not even a half hour into the night, Rocky was already calling attention to problems onstage. Rather than quietly play through the hiccups, he publicly threw his production team and crew under the bus, spinning the moment toward the audience by saying, “Let’s get this motherfucker right because these people paid good money.” The line got the crowd on his side, and to his credit, Rocky knew exactly how to frame his frustration in a way that made him seem like he was fighting for the fans. But the more he complained about not hearing his in-ear monitor, missing equipment and other issues, the more the technical problems became part of the show itself.
That is a risky move. Fans can be forgiving when they feel like an artist is being honest with them, especially on opening night. But when the problems are addressed again and again, the audience stops watching the performance and starts watching the machinery behind it. The illusion breaks. Suddenly, the dystopian bunker is not just part of the concept. It is also a reminder that the whole thing is still being figured out in real time.
That became the defining push and pull of the evening. Rocky had big ideas, but the show did not always feel ready to carry them. Transitions dragged in places. Momentum dipped. The crowd was noticeably unenergized during various parts of the night, especially when the performance leaned into newer or less familiar material. For an artist as stylish and charismatic as
Rocky, the room was not always giving back the kind of electricity the production seemed built to demand.
Still, Rocky deserves credit for how often he was able to pull the night back from the edge. Even when the crowd sagged, he remained a commanding presence. He worked the catwalk, talked directly to the audience and repeatedly found ways to curate the energy in the room. When the show got sloppy, he leaned into personality. When the room felt flat, he hyped it back up. When the production stumbled, he used the chaos as part of the performance.
That did not make the hiccups disappear, but it did keep the night from collapsing under them.
Musically, the set was massive. Rocky performed 38 songs, stretching across new “Don’t Be Dumb” material, live debuts, deep cuts, collaborations, covers and older fan favorites. The early stretch leaned hard into the new era with songs like “Grim Freestyle,” “Trunks,” “HIGHJACK,” “ORDER OF PROTECTION,” “HELICOPTER,” “STOLE YA FLOW” and “SWAT TEAM,” placing the darker, more abrasive material up front before opening the show wider.
That choice made sense conceptually, but it also contributed to some of the night’s uneven energy. New songs can be exciting in a tour opener because fans are hearing the album world come alive for the first time. But they can also be difficult in an arena when the crowd is still learning how to respond. Rocky seemed aware of that, eventually steering the show toward more recognizable peaks like “Yamborghini High,” “Purple Swag,” “Peso,” and “L$D.”
Those older records helped remind the room why Rocky’s catalog still matters. His best songs do not all move in the same direction. Some are dreamy and druggy. Some are stylish and romantic. Some are pure festival fuel. Some are built around mood more than momentum. That range is one of his strengths, and the United Center setlist eventually found ways to show it.
But the pacing did not always make that range feel effortless. A 38-song set is impressive, but more is not automatically better, especially when the night already has technical issues and an audience that needs frequent re-engagement. There were moments when the show felt like it was trying to prove the size of the era rather than shape the strongest version of the concert. A slightly tighter version of this performance could hit much harder.
The comparison to Lollapalooza was unavoidable. Rocky’s headlining set in Grant Park last summer felt like a preview of this “Don’t Be Dumb” world, with the city getting an early glimpse of the darker visuals and bigger stage language he would later bring indoors. Like that festival set, he was late to the stage on Wednesday night. But unlike Lollapalooza, where curfew pressure forced the issue, the United Center’s later curfew allowed Rocky to still deliver a full show.
That was one of the night’s saving graces. Even with the late start and the problems that followed, fans were not cheated out of a short performance. Rocky gave Chicago a full-scale arena show, with enough songs, pyro, lasers and visual ambition to make the evening feel like a major launch. The problem was not a lack of effort. It was a lack of polish.
Opening night is supposed to feel unpredictable. That is part of the appeal. Chicago got the first look at the “Don’t Be Dumb” Tour, and in many ways that first look was worth seeing. Fans witnessed the birth of a new arena concept, a massive setlist and an artist still willing to take risks with how a rap show can look and feel in a venue the size of the United Center.
But they also witnessed the growing pains.
A$AP Rocky’s tour opener was grimy, cinematic, chaotic and occasionally thrilling. It was also sloppy, uneven and too self-conscious about its own mistakes. The best version of this show is clearly in there, and with a few more nights on the road, it may become the kind of fully realized spectacle Rocky was aiming for. On night one in Chicago, though, the ambition was easier to see than the execution.
Check out photos from A$AP Rocky’s “Don’t Be Dumb” Tour opener at the United Center below.
