Childish Gambino Booed Off The Stage In Australia

Childish Gambino Booed Off The Stage In Australia

Donald Glover must wish he was back in Greendale right about now. The rapper/actor better known these days as Childish Gambino recently had a rough night in Australia. The Guardian reports that Glover was mercilessly booed after spending most of a recent performance at Newcastle’s Cambridge Hotel standing near the back of the stage and refusing to grab a microphone.

The newspaper reports that Glover spent more than an hour onstage with his entourage and members of the crowd, but about 40 minutes of that was seated behind turntables, while other artists performed. Apparently, this was a “mixtape” performance, which apparently basically meant a DJ set rather than a proper performance. But the performance wasn’t advertised as such, and the venue has issued a statement claiming that Glover was contracted for a regular performance. Here’s what the promoters wrote on the Cambridge Hotel’s Facebook page:

To everyone who came to see Childish Gambino show last night we are as disappointed as all of you.

We had the opportunity to present Childish Gambino to Newcastle in an intimate gig and we jumped at the chance as we aim to bring the best possible acts to Newcastle for music lovers. As seen last night, unfortunately we have no control over the acts performance once on stage.

For those that aren’t aware, Canberra and ourselves were 2 additional Childish Gambino shows that were promoted in the exact same way as part of his current tour and we were extremely excited to be presented with this opportunity.

Subsequently he didn’t deliver on what was billed and expected by everyone, including us.

The Cambridge strives to deliver Newcastle the highest quality live music possible and we will continue to do so.

Like you, we were equally excited to present the act and its only matched by the disappointment in the performance by the act.

The audience did not take kindly to all this. According to The Sydney Morning Herald, “Glover appeared visibly surprised and upset by the crowd response, which included obscenities insults aimed at the rapper written in perspiration on the glass windows of the venue.” And while Glover did finally perform one song, “the crowd left chanting obscenities after he performed a solo falsetto song and left the stage.”

Moral of the story: If you’re going to do a DJ set rather than a regular show, you need to make absolutely fucking sure everyone knows it’s a DJ set.

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