Grammy Award nominated rapper/singer Flo Rida performed in Victoria for the very first time Wednesday at Save-On-Foods Memorial Centre.
Things started off a little odd, but it ended up being a fun night.
Gates opened at 7pm and as fans entered the arena and walked over to the merch table, they discovered there wasn’t any merch available. Sources tell us that Flo Rida had to deal with a flight delay and that his merch was with him.
Flo Rida stepped on stage on stage a little after 9:30pm and performed for more than an hour and a half. He was joined by VARIE and Int’l Nephew and they immediately sprayed the front of the GA floor with champagne before starting the show with his hit ‘In The Ayer’. Two female dancers were also a fixture through the show. One of them, Jada, was celebrating her birthday. Shots of tequila were consumed straight form a Patron bottle as part of the celebration.
Rounding out the group were DJ Kronik and Miami vocalist Oya Baby. She provided female vocals for various songs and also performed her latest single ‘Sugar Daddy’
During the second song ‘Right Round’, Flo Rida threw a stack of fake million dollar bills into the crowd. the faux money featured images of Flo Rida and Oya Baby and promoted ‘Right Round’ and ‘Sugar Baby’.
Besides the long list of Flo Rida’s known hits, fan interaction was a key component to the concert. Flo Rida gave roses out during ‘Where Them Girls At’. He brought multiple audience members on stage throughout the set and took selfies with them after the songs as they left the stage. He ventured into the audience to perform on top of a crew member’s shoulders twice. He even autographed two pairs of white Nike air force 1s and gave away the individual shoes to people.
Kids even got a moment of the spotlight on stage. Most notably were four girls with a neon pink sign that said “WE (heart) U Flo’. Flo Rida had noticed them at the back of the arena the first time he ventured around the GA floor and had them come on stage and gave them his microphone to sing the opening lines of ‘Wild Ones’. We later caught up with the girls and their moms after the show and their sign had been autographed and they had one of the autographed shoes.
One thing I suddenly realized after seeing young kids on stage is that ignoring the obvious inuendo in songs like ‘Whistle’ and the suggestive twerking by the dancers, Flo Rida’s songs are cleaner that a lot of rap performers. They’re basically devoid of curse words.
The other thing that impressed me was that all this fan interaction that also included grabbing people’s phones while walking around the front of the stage during the final song take selfies for fans was all happening without any kind of expensive meet and greet or VIP ticket. The man knows how to please a crowd and the roughly 4000 attendees looked to be having a good time.
KnowleDJ (pronounced like “knowledge”) was the opening DJ act for the evening. He performed a set of mostly top 40 hits that spanned late 90s Britney Spears to 2000s Miley Cyrus to Chappel Roan. He was joined on stage by Vancouver’s DJ Mellocat who bounded around the stage shooting social media content on her phone, but also played violin with some tracks. KnowleDJ also had a photographer on stage shooting footage on a gimble, taking photos and also recording content on a phone.
The constant running around shooting phone content got a bit distracting for me as a photographer watching the stage, but if you were dancing and essentially enjoying a big top 40 club night you probably didn’t notice as much. Having DJ Mellocat performing on violin did add a much appreciated visually interesting element for someone like me who’s not much of a dancer and prefers seeing a live performance rather than a DJ hidden behind a mixer and a laptop.
