Fool's Gold

With the beginning of a new school year, and the closing ceremonies of summer, many events begin to take place to reconcile the hot days and long nights. On Monday, September 3rd, Downtown NYC was blessed with yet another free concert from the #Been#Trill cats from Fool's Gold. The 'Day Off' concert was the beginning of the end of summer, and the riotous fun that took place is the least you can say as to why it symbolizes NYC events. 

The line-up- Danny Brown, French Montana, Flatbush Zombies, Flosstradamus and many others- were one of the main reasons why this small venue was so crowded. City Winery allows the people at Fool's Gold to take over their cement 'backyard' to throw their annual, free, labor day bash, but this year the space just wasn't enough. When I arrived, I had to walk around the building, what felt like, for miles. So many individuals- from ages ten to fourty- were dressed in their best street attire. There was a group of kids from Australia in front of me in line; they spent just about one grand on tickets just for the event. After losing my place in line, I luckily got in through VIP. Once I was in, a jubilant feeling came over me. I was in by 3 p.m., so I began to brace myself for the remaining five hours of bliss.  

After looking around for a few minutes, I bumped into Atrak and didn't realize who he was until a friend of mine mentioned to take a picture. His cool and reserved disposition welcomed me, and I somehow thought the rest of the day would translate like his smooth demeanor. Wrong. Many performances were cut short due to sporadic technological problems; it began to rain; stage dives bruised me from the neck up; a riotous rush from the outside dominoed to the front, where I was, and people were almost trampled on; it began to rain harder; followed by the fact that they cut the whole festival short because the NYPD came and shut it down. 

Despite all the mishaps, I had an amazing time. Afterwards I had a huge headache, I was dehydrated, water-what hopefully was water- was in my eye from the people on stage doing their thing, and I didn't pay a thing. Witnessing a surprise entrance and performance by A$AP Rocky and the whole A$AP Mob was a quite worth the rain and angry mob. The humbling experience to share the love of music with unfamiliar people is worth enduring it all over again next Labor Day- I'm just bringing a helmet and an umbrella. 

- Olivia Khoury