If Chance the Rapper has proved anything this year, it’s that whatever your expectations are for anything he does, please leave them at the door because he will exceed or subvert whatever you’re thinking he’ll do. There’s not a more fun or transcendent local music experience than seeing the 23-year-old rapper and Chatham native whose birth name is Chancelor Bennett perform.
The kid who played open mics at the Harold Washington Library’s YouMedia sold out a goddamned baseball stadium, breaking the attendance record at U.S. Cellular Field for Magnificent Coloring Day. There’s never been a music festival where the White Sox play, and if there is going to be another, it has a high bar to jump because Chance put on a hell of a day for fans who came across the entire country, not just Chicago, for this.
From opening act Francis and the Lights (who dropped his album today) to a hits-heavy Alicia Keys’ set to Skrillex, who closed out the night, there was no shortage of hot artists around. Collegrove, the project featuring Lil Wayne and 2Chainz, brought the heat, and the crowd was so hyped you could hear it from outside the park.
Let’s get into the big stories of the day. 1) Young Thug didn’t show up for his slotted set (but did make it to the festival), which is a huge bummer for fans who got to U.S. Cellular mad early. 2) Kanye West, even though he had a scheduled gig in Nashville for his “Saint Pablo” tour, did show up at Magnificent Coloring Day a little after 4 p.m.
Chance may have put on the best set I’ve ever seen from the Chicagoan. Last time I saw him, he blew out the Metro for a secret show, and it couldn’t be more clear that he deserves a stadium for his transformative concerts. He didn’t have many major guests, but he did have several puppets for the set, and of course he was backed by his band, the Social Experiment, the whole time. Below read the setlist and check back later for our photos from this magnificent music festival.
Setlist:
“Angels”
“Blessings”
“Cocoa Butter Kisses”
“Smoke Again”
“Favorite Song”
“Brain Cells”
“Smoke Break”
“Same Drugs”
“Juke Jam”
“Baby Blue”
“The Way”
“Ultralight Beam”
“Mixtape”
“All Night”
“D.R.A.M. Sings Special”
“Grown Ass Kid”
“Sunday Candy”
“All We Got”
“How Great”
“Finish Line / Drown”
“Blessings (Reprise)”
Encore:
“Summer Friends”
“Friends”
“Arthur Theme (Wonderful Everyday)”
![There’ll be more than one story to write about “Sundance Institute x Chicago,” coming to town June 28-30. Consider these to be some preliminary questions to be answered in a couple of months. A sort of pop-up import, sponsored by the Chicago Film Office and Choose Chicago, the city’s tourism bureau, “Sundance Institute x Chicago” is the power of branding incarnate. The event will consist of a modest four-screening package of titles that premiered in January at the annual Sundance Film Festival of Park City, Utah fame. The off-screen activity’s the apparent bigger deal: panels, discussions, filmmaker-centric meetups, patterned after […]](https://www.chicagotribune.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/CTC-L-Sundance-01.jpg?w=579 "There’ll be more than one story to write about “Sundance Institute x Chicago,” coming to town June 28-30. Consider these to be some preliminary questions to be answered in a couple of months. A sort of pop-up import, sponsored by the Chicago Film Office and Choose Chicago, the city’s tourism bureau, “Sundance Institute x Chicago” is the power of branding incarnate. The event will consist of a modest four-screening package of titles that premiered in January at the annual Sundance Film Festival of Park City, Utah fame. The off-screen activity’s the apparent bigger deal: panels, discussions, filmmaker-centric meetups, patterned after […]")
