Childish Gambino – 5.14.11
I met Childish Gambino aka the comedian Donald Glover at SXSW this year when the web editor of Village Voice Media was writing a story on him for the Village Voice. The Voice ended up having enough time to get Donald into a studio for the cover shoot but they had me shoot some images at SXSW just incase they weren’t able to more shots later. I met Donald again a few days later backstage at the Village Voice / Frank 151 SXSW showcase. He and Community co-star Danny Pudi spent some time looking though my photos on my iPad before they (with me in tow) got pulled back to Wu Tang’s dressing room. I ran into Donald one other time at SXSW and since then he and I have kept in touch.
Since meeting him I have been listening to his rap EP under the name Childish Gambino and I really love it. He was playing two shows in NYC in May, one in Manhattan on the 10th and the second in Brooklyn on the 14th. I missed the show on the 10th but I went to the after party with a few friends. He freestyled for over an hour and Questlove filled in for him on drums. It was pretty impressive. After that he invited us back to his penthouse at the Thompson hotel for an after party. It was a pretty good time so I figured I needed to pay him back by getting my ass to his Brooklyn show and taking some pictures.
On Saturday I showed up to the Williamsburg Hall of Music with several hundred other people ready to see the IAMDONALD tour in action. Donald came out and did 20 minutes or so of stand up and then played a video that closely resembled one of the old Derrick Comedy sketches. The video led the audience to his live Childish Gambino performance. He brought out a full band and did at least an hour set of hip hop jams that rocked the crowd silly. On one song the band takes a break and a video is played of one of my favorite comedians Reggie Watts crafting a beat for Donald which he raps over live. It was pretty legit.
The whole show was being taped for something and one of my favorite moments of the night was when, before he played his encore, the lights shined on the crowd and it turned out that The Soup host and Community star Joel McHale was one of the camera man and was filming the show from the crowd. The kids all around him went nuts. Childish came back on, and fucked the crowd up with a killer encore and then I went home and tried to get some fucking sleep. Good times.
These photos are awesome, and I really wish there was a show coming close to Cincinnati! Donglover 😛 has been my ridiculous crush since the Dereck Comedy “My name’s Brian, I like to skateboard” days. ::sigh:: ::swoon::
Also, Joel McHale is a fine man, and he’s lucky I’m no homewrecker (just sayin).
Every time I see a photo of this night or someone reminding me of this night, I die a little inside, because this night would have been such a highlight that has now passed me by. IT HURTS.
But these photos are legit. Gorgeous, at most.
Donglover pwns.
And OMG. JOEL MCHALE AND THAT SHINY FOREHEAD. Ugh. I’m in awe. I’m in sadness for missing this night.
But I will redeem it one day.
Thanks for the photos 🙂
It’s no secret that McHale is a good looking guy, but in a crowd of ‘regular’ people, he looks positively doll-like.