Travis Scott provides thrills for patient fans in Indianapolis

IndyStar

Rapper Travis Scott followed his own advice Wednesday.

During a you-can-do-anything pep talk offered near the end of his show at Bankers Life Fieldhouse, Scott advised his fans to go hard when they’re on the ropes.

For Scott, a tardy arrival served as the night’s adversity. Plenty of attendees in an estimated audience of 11,000 appeared displeased when the headliner launched his performance 85 minutes later than a scheduled start time of 9 p.m.

In the closest thing to an explanation or apology, Scott said he felt under the weather — crediting a vitamin B-12 injection for getting him to the stage.

Travis Scott performs Wednesday at Bankers Life Fieldhouse.

The Houston native who performed “Sicko Mode” earlier this month at the Super Bowl rallied enough energy to pogo-dance on two Bankers Life Fieldhouse stages and orchestrate a fans’ mosh pit on the arena floor.

The song “Through the Late Night” served as the show’s unofficial anthem. “We sleep through day, then we play all through the late night,” Scott rapped. Not an ideal itinerary for his young audience on a school night, but the tidy 80-minute performance (about 10 minutes shorter than a typical date on Scott’s “Wish You Were Here” tour) wrapped up at 11:45 p.m.

Sonically, “Through the Late Night” captured Scott's effectively disorienting aesthetic: Soul-shaking bass tones and communal rhymes shouted by the rapper and his faithful overpowered a whimsical strings arrangement.

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Check out four ways Scott was better late than never in Indianapolis:

1. Charisma to spare

“He’s a rock star” is a common assessment by people who catch Scott in a live setting. He lived up to this billing Wednesday, casually picking up and then smoking a small gift thrown onstage early in the show. Scott later doted on a young man who asked to scramble onstage to hug his idol. All the fan had to do in return was dive back into the masses. Before and after Scott mustered thrash-metal intensity during a rendition of “Mamacita,” his feelings about Indianapolis progressed from “I want to see how your city gets down” to “I love this city already.”

2. Thrill rides

Scott’s 2018 album “Astroworld,” takes its inspiration from a Houston amusement park that existed from 1968 to 2005. The accompanying tour brings elements of a roller coaster into a concert setting, including a 360-degree loop plus a wavy track that stretched from the front to the back of the arena for two songs near the show’s conclusion. The actual execution of these leisurely stunts confined Scott’s energy rather than amplifying it, but it was nice that a handful of fans were given the chance to ride. The audience participation also helped to explain the unusual disclaimer on Wednesday’s tickets: “Holder assumes all risks.”

3. Inventive tunes

While Wednesday’s performance included an plenty of bangers and a few ballads, Scott took time to showcase the best of “Astroworld” when he paired mid-tempo songs “Skeletons” and “Astrothunder.” Built on harpsichord sounds and co-written and produced by Tame Impala’s Kevin Parker, “Skeletons” matches the trippy aura of Scott’s lyrical output. “Astrothunder” bookends the effect through an onslaught of misdirection whistles.

4. Big questions

In the middle of presenting one of the most ambitious hip-hop tours in history, Scott also is looking to the future. He paused between songs to pledge a return to the recording studio, which may or may not yield more songs about recreational drugs and the Hidden Hills lifestyle of the Kardashians. Scott explores something more substantial on “Astroworld” track “Stop Trying to be God,” with its James Blake-sung question, “Is it too long since the last open conversation that you had?” Here’s to Scott continuing the dialogue with his fans.

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Call IndyStar reporter David Lindquist at 317-444-6404. Follow him on Twitter: @317Lindquist.

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