Leaving the showground for Pharos Tour NZ aka Childish Gambino aka Donald Glover + Ludwig Göransson (who does most of the music), felt like walking away from an abusive relationship.

I’m not going to throw Donald Glover under a bus here. I think his heart’s in the right place, even though the execution was, painfully and deeply, flawed.

But a $300NZD concert that’s sub-par? Not on my watch. Here’s the thing — they charged us $200NZD per ticket for a mystery concert in an undisclosed location, with all-new material by Childish Gambino and overnight camping. Add in between $40 and $80 for round-trip petrol to the event, far from any sizable city — then the $40 they decided to charge for parking at the last minute — then $20 for food, since they wouldn’t allow anyone to bring in their own — you’ve got one hell of an expensive ticket.

Also they said they’d tow any cars they found parked near the event (a bluff, the nearest town is 1 hour away). So, it’d be better be one hell of a concert right? Right? Imagine that you’re in a large inflatable dome, which they have to keep inflated by limiting the number of people entering and leaving the dome at any one time. Queueing takes literally hours. But you can’t take water in. For Reasons. You’re trapped in this dome, and if you leave to get water or take a wizz, you’re faced with around a half an hour wait to get back in, not to mention losing whatever decent spot you had around the stage. So most people just stay put, don’t drink, don’t pee, because it’s only a 2 hour concert.

But what a concert! Spectacular visuals on the ceiling, moving to the music, a dozen or so performers, plus dancers… which would be great, if the sound wasn’t off. I mean, ‘off’, like it’s not really sounding like a live event. During the first song I realised they were using backing tracks for the main vocals, and Donald was, more or less, being a ‘hype man’ for his own voice. I understand that’s more common in rap and rnb circles, but it’s a little cheap — and it continued for many of the songs during the set. At first I wasn’t even sure that the instrumentalists were actually live — because the signal coming out of the speakers sounded so compressed and limited. This may’ve been an intentional effect designed to create a seamless flow between tracks which used backing tracks from his CD releases, of which there were only a few. Or it may’ve been a result of the speakers being so loud and overdriven that wax earplugs were required to make it bearable. But it didn’t sound ‘live’, it sounded canned. That’s Really unfortunate.

As I ran a recording studio for 10 years, I could also tell that on several of the tracks, the backing singers were supposedly singing into their microphones, but the actual backing vocals weren’t theirs. I can very easily hear the difference between a bunch of singers in the same room all singing together into a couple of ribbon/condensor mics, and several singers singing individually into multiple dynamic stage mics. It didn’t sound like individual stage mics. So it was apparent that on at least some of the tracks, they were lip-waving. They tended to be down in the pit, singing offstage when this was occuring. They sounded great when they were singing, so I’m not sure why that happened.

Lastly, the visuals up top were great…. except when you’re half-dehydrated, some things start to make you just feel ill, and at points I felt a little like I was inside a “Don’t hug me I’m scared” episode. Donald Glover himself? He brought the energy up. Everyone else looked cynical and jaded to begin with — the stage hand in front of me was absentmindedly swiping through Tinder on his iphone. Did I mention we weren’t allowed to take phones in? Did I mention we weren’t allowed back to our cars once we’d entered the event, for almost any reason? Did I mention the fact that I was almost forced to the back of the hour-long queue for entry because I’d taken through a small bag which the earlier guards had said was fine, while my female friend (and all females) were allowed to take through a handbag of the same size? Apparently, “At Pharos, everyone is equal”, but, some people are obviously more equal than others.

So it was really up to Donald to raise the roof, and he did a pretty good job, hype-man stuff aside — I mean really. If you’re expected to sing for two hours, you have to take a look at what you’re doing. As a singer, I know it’s tough. You have to find a comfortable range, then expand from there. Donald, meanwhile, seemed to be more focused on exploring the extremities of his voice, which is interesting, but will probably not contributeto long-term vocal stamina — and this became very apparent with later tracks in the show where the backing track would do one half of the verse, and he’d do the second. I’m not sure why he didn’t drop down to his lower register for the rap parts, he would’ve worn out his voice much quicker doing the rap bits in a high vocal style I believe.

But, and I think here’s the key thing. Donald clearly believed in this event. The amount of investment into preproduction was enormous, from the light show through to the ticketing app, the musicians, dancers and the crazy, definitely-not-legal-in-new-zealand-cause-one-false-move-and-everybodies-trapped-inside-a-deflating-deathtrap, dome. But the execution was poor. He really wanted people to have a good time, be equal, be happy. It didn’t work out that way. A local iwi (Maori tribe) seemed to be handling security and management of the event, and I don’t know if you’ve visited NZ before, but Maori culture can be pretty bolshy and hard-nosed at times. That’s not a bad thing, but it’s not really a kind of service industry culture like America’s is.

It felt like the intent inside the tent was the total opposite of the vibe outside. Inside, you were supposedly supported, loved and cared about. Outside, you got ordered around, arranged in queues, and effectively told to stomach it if you had a problem with anything. Some individuals were better than others, and I definitely had Some positive experiences with staff. But largely, it just felt like the paying customer was the least important person there. Getting in and out was a problem, as the rain had turned the $40 field carparks to mush; so I am very glad that I parked at a nearby reserve and got my friend with his 4-wheel drive to pick me up. I wouldn’t have gotten out of there.

Vocals aside, Donald put on his “This is America” manic marionette act (not mocking it - I love it) and really got into the performance/character. The other musicians slowly followed suit, though it was clear they were Way more comfortable with the soul material than the more esoteric of the songs. As he finished the set, he said “I love you, New Zealand”, 3 times. At the last, as he was covered with a blanket and ushered out, he looked finished. Like a man who’d given everything he had, and it still hadn’t quite been enough to achieve what he’d wanted. But he put up a good hard fight trying, and I’ll respect him for that at least. Was the event good? Yes. Was it, travel for two days, pay $300 and wait, standing without seats, on muddy ground, for 4.5 hours good? Not really.

When I left the site I’d intended to spend the next day more or less exploring the coastline, but really, inside I just wanted to go home. I wonder if Donald felt the same way?