The Not-Wasted Youth: Feng on 6/7 in Paradise (Rock Club)

Design by Sophie Parrish

By Avery Piazza

I was met at the door of Paradise Rock Club in a torrential downpour by a hype beast pleading in the face of security as earnestly as he could muster: “I swear to god. That is a real ID.” The hour of Feng was fast approaching.

A sea of phones stood erect and prepped to capture the 20 year old rapper’s entrance before the preshow music even faded. The Londoner entered the stage as if he was walking into his bedroom, greeted by the crowd who compressed around the trapezoidal platform a little more than possible and immediately began moshing to fan-favorite “XY.” The tug of war between trying to record and trying to mosh was soon lost to a complete surrender to the vivacious sound. It didn’t matter if it was good, it only mattered that he was here. 

My original aversion to the teenage coalition began to disperse into the mosh as I found myself chanting “Feng, Feng, Feng,” to the saturated drill beat of “Firework.” He led a crazed energy with a calm demeanor. His set was a back-to-back line up of songs from Weekend Rockstar, throwing in early career hits at which the crowd thundered. He cut and spliced songs together with abrupt jumps from each 1-2 minute banger to the next. Feng’s growing control of the crowd was powerful yet effortless. He was like a retractive magnetic force, dragging us back and forth with only his casual treading across the stage. By the end of his clean one hour set, ending with “XOXO” before the encore, he had complete control. When he said “Get low” people were face down on the ground. He didn’t even have to tell them how high to jump when the beat dropped. Fans reached their phones towards him as if the device was a portal to touch him.

I soon realized these juxtaposed energies were mutually dependent upon each other. Conveyed by his aloof yet decidedly corny demeanor and the crowd’s complete surrender, Feng represents a sense of reckless youth that this generation seems to believe has been taken from them. As Feng crooned the lyrics to “Wasted Youth”:  “They control our minds, tell us we’re not fine. But it’s all a lie, we all know the truth. We’re doin’ alright. We’re not the wasted youth.” The crowd chanted this like a battle cry;  permission to be young and wild was granted. Feng stood at the end of the stage and asked the question fans seemed to be waiting their whole lives to be asked: “Running wild, are you in or out?” They were most definitely in.

The end of the set was abrupt, replete with a hard-earned layer of film covering every inch of skin and Grimes’ “Obilivion” providing a soft outro, we came down off the shock. “Thanks Feng, that was great” said a fellow outsider wearing a button down bowling shirt as a shirtless hype beast putting too much effort into his walk screamed “LFG FENG, BRO IS A KING.” The two sides of the coin united, not necessarily by music, but by energy. I got onto the street and I saw the hotheaded teen with the “real ID” from earlier snapchat-facetiming his friends with a dorky grin on his face, chanting, with a true earnestness this time, Feng’s mantra: “I’m fucking young and I’m fucking lit.”