Written by Kenya-Liyah
On Halloween, I had the honor to cover Gods of Chaos at Aragon Ballroom. I arrived around 9 P.M. This event had a very unique (yet stacked) lineup: 2slimey, SPEED, Waka Flocka Flame, and headliner Osamason. My night of course began in the box office. As I stood in this tiny room, waiting for my press pass and ticket, I noticed the person in front of me looked eerily familiar. I doubt my recognition, and receive my credentials. I turn around and see a fan taking a photo with her. I stop, we make eye contact, and I couldn’t hold myself back from exclaiming, “Am I tweaking?”. Both of us laugh it off, and I realize I’m speaking to Jane Remover. We start chopping it up, I tell her how I saw her open for JPEGMAFIA at Radius in 2024. She told me she loved my earrings, and we took some photos together.
The night was already off to a great start. Once settling into the venue, there was about a 15 minute gap waiting for 2slimey’s set to begin. Honestly, I had gone into this set with the expectation that I wouldn’t enjoy it. I was very quickly proven wrong. 2slimey is a very engaging performer, I didn’t spend a single moment of his set bored. He honestly reminds me of a character, you genuinely can’t believe he’s real so you can’t look away. My favorite song he played was “Times Changin”, and that track also had the most crowd engagement. He played an unreleased song, and announced that he’ll be dropping an album November 28th. Needless to say, I’ll be happily tuning in. I’m glad I had an open mind. After 2slimey was Australian Hardcore powerhouse Speed. I know this site typically covers rap, but I am personally a big fan of SPEED and think they were a perfect addition to this lineup. The crowd was honestly disappointing for a good 60% of their set. The track “One Blood We Bleed” changed that, opening a large mosh pit in the crowd. SPEED has amazing stage presence and delivered a worthwhile performance. All of the band members were dressed as Shrek characters, including their front man Jem Siow as Shrek, and other band members as Donkey, Fiona, Lord Farquaad, and Puss in Boots. Lord Farquaad (Kane Vardon) was notably insane on drums, delivering one of the best performances I had seen in my life. Eventually, media was kicked out of the photo pit due to the amount of crowd surfers, so I enjoyed a lot of this performance from general admission and the stage.
In between SPEED and Waka Flocka Flame’s sets, things got rather stressful. I had a run-in with an overwhelmed sound engineer that reminded me just how poorly women in media are often treated. He spoke to me in a super condescending manner, which honestly brought me to the point of both tears and frustration. However, I brushed it off, and started to write in my notebook like Regina George in Mean Girls. While the Aragon Ballroom team prepared for Waka Flocka, the allowed space on stage was made notably larger than it was for the 2 previous acts. Waka’s tour DJ played Faneto by Chief Keef prior to his arrival on stage, which was the perfect track to keep a Chicago crowd hype. Waka Flocka definitely had the most crowd-centered performance, spending at least 15 minutes quite literally walking amongst the crowd creating mosh pits. Waka’s stage presence is extremely lively and unpredictable. I was dual-wielding both my digital camera and phone, at an inconspicuous part of the stage where he had not been anywhere near. I could not have been more wrong in assuming he wouldn’t come over there, as he jumped off the stage, sending my phone flying off with him. As a young journalist trying to find my footing, I would be lying if I said I wasn’t nervous or embarrassed. However, standing at 6’4” he proved to be a gentle giant — picking it up for me without skipping a beat. He invited everyone with stage access to come center stage with him and dance during “Bustin’ At Em’”. He also pointed directly into my camera during hit track “No Hands”, leaving me to try my absolute best to maintain a poker face.
For the headliner Osamason, we had no stage access, and could only shoot for the first 3 songs. It’s worth noting that the rest of this lineup was curated around Osamason and his fanbase. There was a notably higher security presence than for the other 3 acts. He was listed to perform at midnight, but didn’t begin until 12:55. Me and the other concert goers began to question if he was appearing at all, hearing ear-shattering boos from the crowd. He opened the show with unreleased track “Ducking No Opps”, and fan-favorite “Off That”. While the energy in the venue was explosive and intoxicating, it was impossible to ignore Aragon Ballroom’s notably poor, muddy acoustics. This combined with Osamason's sound design did him no favors. After our 3 song allotment was over, I had a close spot at barricade and still could hardly tell what song was on. The poor sound system completely swallowed and muddled his vocals, drowning them into the track.
On top of that, there was so much fog and haze that even standing in front of the stage, Osamason was barely visible. Nonetheless, he provided a fun performance, performing more than 20 songs. My favorite was definitely “All Star”, which was one of the best performances of the whole night. Despite the hour-long delay, technical difficulties and feeling like I was physically inside of the smoke machine, every single act delivered an outstanding performance. Osamason was worth the wait, and he claims to be dropping his album “Nocturnal” on Thanksgiving night. Gods of Chaos delivered exactly the title promised; it was a highly chaotic, unpredictable, fun experience. I plan to be in the midst of said chaos again next year.
