For the past five years, Donald Glover has been everywhere and nowhere: from the finale to his afro-surreal dramedy Atlanta to the launch of his company GILGA, he’s kept busy. Before taunting the excited crowds on the New World Tour about being ‘real fans’ (DonGlovers, some might call them) he even collaborated with minds as talented as Malia Obama to write the satirical dark comedy Swarm, a biting commentary on stan culture.
Glover’s career trajectory from NYU college DJ to the endearingly corny improv (and borderline homoerotic friendship with Abed) that earmarked his role as Troy on Community feels like it can be only described as dad lore. And that’s not even mentioning how his stand-up inspired the popular Spider-Man variant Miles Morales – who may as well be the Spider-man to children. Childish Gambino has been outside living every kid’s dream for the past decade.
Black creative Willow Smith accompanies him on this tour, fresh off the release of her new album “empathogen.” Her slam-poetry jazz rock style setlist accomplished setting a larger-than-life tone for the night. If you wanted boring artists who’d just give you the DSP version of the songs over MP3s, you were in the wrong place. If you wanted a transformative live experience that took cherished songs and evolved them in organic ways, Willow invited you with open arms and unbridled Black joy. Both icons shine to me as paradigms of what artistic expression can do as a form of healthcare. Despite their controversies (like Willow’s odd relationship with her pseudo-Buddhist/Hindu gurus, or Glover’s bluer sense of humor in his early career,) they’ve been beacons of inspiration to many – especially minorities – who’ve felt like outsiders everywhere. This really shows in the hodgepodge that showed up to the Columbus show.
After a few Columbus concert flops reshaped the city’s perception to a pitstop sandwiched between bigger city spots like Toronto or New York, I was worried about turnout, especially considering that his farewell album was marketed as a soundtrack for a movie I’m not fully convinced is real. Bino, however, was met with a surprisingly lively farewell. Vicarious Spider-Man variants – some even masked – peppered the seats, buddied with Bando Stone cosplayers in floral shirts and artsy hipster girls like the ones described in the song L.E.S. A few transfers sporting spiritwear from Community’s Greendale College stopped by as well. Some might argue there were fashion dog-whistles for male manipulators in the queue. I’ve personally never seen so many people of color with white partners concentrated in one place; it’s honestly quite impressive.
His latest album Bando Stone and the New World dominated the early chunk of the setlist. The album acts as an earnest parting with the Childish Gambino persona. Like SZA’s SOS’s, Gambino’s ultimate album sounds more like shuffling through radio stations in an alternate reality where every song is performed by Childish Gambino than a concisely curated album. The schema uniting the soundtrack’s sound is ‘stranded on a futuristic island’ – which drove me to an epiphany: Childish Gambino is truly not a real person.
In my mind, I have always used Childish Gambino and Donald Glover interchangeably. However, with the release of this album, I’ve realized that Childish Gambino is really Glover’s imaginary friend – a hallucination he crafted when he felt isolated – comparable to Wilson from “Castaway.” After growing from an aloof yet ambitious existentialist into a gyrating family man, Glover has to let Gambino go. In Bando Stone, we hear Childish Gambino’s life flashing before his eyes before he fades like Inside Out’s Bing Bong. We amble through every past sonic experiment and watch as he gets some final ideas off his chest.
The set design struck me with awe from the first synth pulse on the set’s industrial-tropical fusion track “H3@RT$ W3RE M3@NT T0 F7¥.” The track works even better as an opener live, complemented by the space-age haunted chandelier – mythologically dubbed as the light-binder – that Gambino’s visage possesses alongside raindrops, skulls, and shimmering stars. It transitioned well into the oddly direct tongue-in-cheek sermons on “Survive,” but his addition of The Worst Guys was the moment I fell in love with his discography all over again. How many rap songs do you know with a guitar solo? Of those, how many rappers have a guitarist shredding it live? Grown men cried beside me that day.
The modest but impressive backup dancers’ choreography really shined on “In the Night” and “To Be Hunted”/”19.10.” However, Glover’s choice to include the shocking KAYTRANADA collab “Witchy”’s proves another thesis of the tour; the highlights are never what you expect. Hardcore fans may rightfully come for the churchlike experience of “Human Sacrifice” or the ironically extravagant and clever bars on “Sweatpants”, but features like the bongos on “3005”, the harmonies on “Sober,” the new tropical outro for “Feels like Summer”, the desperate belting alongside the Yeat hologram on “Cruisin’”, or the molasses bass on “Urn” really made the night. (I’m a little butthurt about the audience picking the ephemeral Urn over the hailed unreleased Latin track Saturday, though.) Overall, the show was an opulent extrasensory audiovisual wonder of the world and my favorite concert experience so far.
A couple behind us told us that this was their first date, and I honestly can’t imagine how romantic the starry intermission with the Afro-soul track “No Excuses”’s soundscape must’ve resonated for them. I cannot compliment enough whoever put Gambino onto Fela Kuti. The funky sax was the final puzzle piece that kept the mostly instrumental track from getting stale. As if curated for them, his honeyed rendition of N.E.R.D.-influenced falsetto ballad Steps Beach was addressed to everyone who’s ever fallen in love.
Outside of mature tracks like the passionate “Me and Your Mama”, he introduced a final thesis to the show in the second half with his unapologetic showcase of all his eras – even his most juvenile. I only expected him to retreat as far back as the artistic puberty ‘Hamilton-meets-Lil-Wayne’ album Camp, but he dared to guide us all the way to his mixtape era with “DoYaLike.” After publicly enjoying “Bonfire” for the first time since 2019, he really took it further and threw “Freaks and Geeks” at us.
Dreams come true on the New World Tour. For Gambino, Bando Stone realizes his dreams for Because the Internet without the burden of proving his worth to the world as a young artist. and the budget constraints forbidding him from pairing it with a film. We know Glover always dreams of endings, and the way “Redbone” (which almost made me cry) ended twice, there was a full end credits sequence, and then another ultimate ending with the biblically cathartic “Lithonia” is a true testament to his desire to make them rewarding for all the real fans. Gambino has cried that each album since 2016 was his ‘final album,’ but something tells me he’s serious this time. This album cycle turns the final pages for yet another “blog era star.” This tour bookends Glover’s youth as he graduates to a new chapter featuring middle age and fatherhood. Luckily, endings only invite new beginnings.
Of course, this ‘last’ Childish Gambino album can only be a segue to our first Donald Glover album.
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