A$AP Rocky, Glasgow review: 'dazzling'
A$AP Rocky’s first global tour in seven years contains a decade’s worth of stored-up ideas and more, writes David Pollock
Welcome to A$AP Rocky: The Movie, a dazzling, partly interactive concert spectacle like very little else you might have seen in an arena. The opening alone was dazzling, with New York City rapper Rocky, hooded and scarved like an undercover felon, transported into the moshpit’s heart by a team of black and white clad slamdancers who formed a protective ring around him.
With mobile cameras in the pit and an aerial view from the large model police helicopter raising and lowering from the rafters, its spotlight trained on Rocky from above, he barked out the opening few tracks amid a crush of tangible excitement and dangerous unpredictability; made all the more impressive by how obviously tightly-controlled everything was.
The earliest sections of the show were the bluntest and most gangster-rap heavy, including Grim Freestyle, American Sabotage and Highjack, all played on the floor, and the Moby-sampling A$AP Forever as he dangled by a harness from the helicopter. Then his crew transported him first to another hanging helicopter, then various stages built into the life-sized harbour patrol boat jutting from centre stage.
While he played, martial ranks of SWAT-clad dancers (Rocky’s on the run, was the very loose theme of the production) marched around him, and smoke and flame jets burst in the air. What started off macho and action-packed, however (culminating in Rocky waving a fake RPG around during Riot (Rowdy Pipe’n), mellowed considerably in the second act.
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Punk Rocky was a straightforward, mic-grabbing indie-rocker, Sundress a burst of summery dance-pop. F***in Problems, despite the name, was dedicated to “all the ladies”, and the set tore towards a conclusion with the glossy synth-pop of Fashion Killa, the bass heavy slowjam Jukebox Joints and fan favourites Stay Here for Life and I Smoked Away My Brain.
It’s been seven years since Rocky’s most recent (and first) major global tour, and eight since his last album Testing. This long-awaited global odyssey in support of 2026’s belated follow-up Don’t Be Dumb contained a decade’s worth of stored-up ideas and more.
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