The Last Night of My Youth (I'll Miss You, Larry Lovestein)
This piece was originally published September 24, 2018 on Medium.com/@LainaLovestein
Bartenders are nice.
I requested to leave work early because I had business to take care of. It was July, and I was planning on moving out of my mother’s house three months later. My mom and I went to go view the apartment I’d be moving into. I was nervous, excited, and overwhelmed. But I had something to do that. Something I didn’t know would be one of the last great nights of my youth.
I was 22. My boyfriend and I had tickets to go to ‘The Great Space Migration’ tour. This was a big deal for me. All of my favorite artists were touring together. This was an even bigger deal because tours of this caliber never came through Cleveland. We always got skipped over and every time it happened, I was upset. But not this time. This time, I was going to get to experience something great.
2013 was an interesting year for me. I was in a bad mood for most of the second half of it because that was the year I thought I was going to be graduating with my undergrad degree.
22 year old Earlaina wasn’t as comfortable with waves in life as she is now. She thought that timelines were to be followed down to the T. She thought that just because she wasn’t doing the proper things that were expected, she assumed she failed. She felt that she was getting older and had to settle for what life had gave her. So, she thought she had to be hurry up and become an adult. That required 1) getting a car, and 2) move out of her parents house. 22 year old Earlaina thought working two jobs was the end all be all. She felt that if she could take care of herself, she was a grown up. As long as she could maintain, she would be okay. Nothing more, nothing less.
I cringe at the thought of me being content with jobs, paying bills, and having no ambition. Have no need to flourish further and create alternative goals for myself. But 22 year old me didn’t see the light at the end of the tunnel that would be mid-20s. That time period provides a little glimmer of hope and a bop on the head that we all need to light fire under us and fight for more. But she knew people just a year or two younger than her that were following their dreams and visions. She saw the fruit of their labor and admired them.
More reasons that made this show special.
My boyfriend and I were at the bar, talking about our day. The bartender asked what show we were going to. We started tell her and then she gave up special passes to get into the show early. As well as a set list.
Pregaming.
I immediately fangirled because I saw that Earl Sweatshirt would be performing. There had been an announcement via Twitter that he would miss a few shows because he was sick. But look at God, he was at the Cleveland stop. Great news to start the night.
Around this time, there was this wave of young artists that were crushing it. There was the not quite together but still together collective, Odd Future. From that unit spawned two of the performers that night: The Internet and Earl Sweatshirt. Vince Staples was on the bill as well. I was familiar with him because of his affiliation with Odd Future as well. He was from LA like the rest of them and made music with a good amount of artists in the crew. Chance the Rapper had released ‘Acid Rap’ a few months earlier and quickly became one of my favorite artists. It was such a refreshing project and it still a snapshot of my life at that time. Just a kid, no responsibilities, and having fun. I discovered my vices and found myself immersed in these new worlds.
The headliner of the show was someone who I had been listening to since 2010. I was 19 and trying to figure out my next moves in life after coming home from college after my first year. I vividly remember walking from the bus stop after doing some volunteer work and hearing him blare in my headphones “Muthafucka I feel like the hardest working kid in America’.
Mac Millers music was the soundtrack to my life post high school, literally every album or project he released was relevant to me. At this point, ‘Watching Movies With the Sound Off’ was just as twisted and all over the place as I was. But in the midst of the chaos, the album had a centered nature about it. It was a “Let me get my shit together” type of project. This was where I was in my life.
The boyfriend and I finished up our drinks, thanked the bar tender for the gift, and went upstairs to the balcony. The show started and Vince Staples opened. He had enough stage presence to make us pay attention. Openers always have the toughest job at setting the tone for the show. He did a great job. Little did I know, he would eventually become one of my favorite rappers to this day.
My excitement started building, one of my favorite artists started performing. I’ve love Syd The Kid and Matt Martians since I heard them in my dorm room in 2011. They formed a band, The Internet, and released an EP. I screamed out “Syd, I wanna have your babies”. Obviously, she didn’t hear me from the balcony. My boyfriend and I danced as she sand ‘Love Song’ and we noticed her looking so nervous while performing. Crazy to believe because flash forward 5 years later, she commanded a festival stage effortlessly. I was in attendance during The Internet’s set at AfroPunk last August.
The Internet.
After their set ended, even more excitement came over me due to the next performer.
Chancellor Bennet made me love hip-hop again. He was the direct spawn of Kanye West and all the things I loved growing up in the culture. He was energetic, fun, honest, and authentic. When the ‘Good Ass Intro’ started playing, I LOST MY SHIT. I started jumping and dancing along. Some kid joined in with me and it was a party. I danced with my boyfriend as he performed ‘Pushaman’. He did ‘Brain Cells’, a song from his first mixtape, ‘#10Day’. It was a an ode to smoking weed with no remorse. Just fun, young shit. I enjoyed it so much. Still can feel the energy.
Don’t know why this was so small. Androids in 2013 were wild.
By this time, my cell phone died (so no more pictures to add to this post) but I was still amped for the rest of the show.
Initially, Earl scared the hell out of me. The first mixtape of his was something I tried to listen to but when I heard about swastikas on letterman jackets, I had to tune out. Infamously shortly after that mixtape release, Earl was shipped off to boarding school by his mom. He emerged back to the public about two years later with different content. It was mature, evolved, and skilled. Vince Staples assisted Earl on stage while Syd DJ’d. Fun Fact: she actually used to be Odd Future’s tour DJ before she started performing on her own. A random memory I had about the crowd and their reception during this performance was some girl asking was Earl Sweatshirt a group because there were two guys on stage. Poor baby didn’t eve know the purpose of a hype man, *insert facepalm emoji*.
During Earl’s set, ‘Milkshake’ started playing and strobe lights started flashing. We quickly noticed Mac Miller on stage, dancing along with Earl and Vince to the classic Kelis track. This was what made him special. He was a silly dude and you could tell the camaraderie he shared with the rest of the acts on the tour. If you watched his show on MTV2, you knew he was a silly dude. Always joking ,doing something for a laugh. This is what made him personable and fun. It was just him having a good time.
We saw stage hands come out and transform the House of Blues stage into what appeared a spaceship, fitting perfectly with the theme.
It’s been so long, I can’t even say I remember the song he opened his set with. Also, I probably was about three beers deep. But one thing I remember, again, was the energy. It was so special. We danced, chanted, and rapped along to all the songs word for word.
He started performing ‘Gees’. The lyrics to the hook was ‘”Suck my dick before I smack you with it”. We noticed a group of older white people next to our section. Mac pointed out that they were his parents and their friends. His dad chanted along with the song, and it cracked me up. You could see how much his parents supported him, his talent, and his dreams being fully realized. It was beautiful to witness.
After a number of songs performed, Mac started a different set within the show.
This was no longer Mac, this was Larry Lovestein.
Larry Lovestein was the funky, soulful alter ego of the rapper. Mac was a lover of jazz and the music he made was reflective of that. It was very reminiscent of the way A Tribe Called Quest, The Pharacyde, and many others included the genre within their music. That’s why I was so drawn to his music initially. It was familiar.
He went from playing piano, scratching on turntables, playing drums, all assisted by The Internet as his backup band. The highlight of this section had to be the stripped down version of ‘Objects in the Mirror’. You saw that not only did he love hip-hop, he loved music in general. The talent his exhibited during that set really showed us where he would eventually go with his music. Hip-hop at the core but mixing these extremely musically inclined elements throughout.
At the end of the show, of course the crowd demanded an encore. This was when he emerged again, this time in a Cleveland Cavalier Shawn Kemp jersey. Even though it was just a jersey, that was a ton of respect shown to the city, and anyone time someone shows love to my lil city, my heart is warmed.
He sat down at the piano and started playing ‘How Does It Feel’ by D’Angelo. He asked ‘Anybody know this song?” I screamed “I DO!” and he acknowledged me from my balcony seat.
I was amazed by the show and it’s a memory that I’ll always hold dear. The show represented the last night of my youth. What made it more special was that I saw young people just like me, living out their dreams, following their passions. To this day, every one of those artists have grown in the craft and are still authentic.
Mac recently released, ‘Swimming’. Another amazing album added to his already stacked discography. I vividly remember watching the video for ‘Self Care’ around 3am one night, amazed by the imagery and music. The transition to ‘Oblivion’ was both sad and triumphant in an eerie way.
When my friend texted me the news of his passing, I didn’t know what to do. I was sad like I lost an actual family member. I grew up with Mac. I listened to him since I was 19 and here I was, 27 and still following his music. Just that Monday before, I put the ‘Kids’ mixtape in my car cd player and had a long kick it session with myself. His music was an important part of my decompression time. His passing really affected me. He was my youth.
It’s not my place to worry about why it happened. It’s not my place to know about how it happened. All I know is that I’ll miss Mac.
I adopted his alter ego, ‘Lovestein’ as my pen name in 2013 and I haven’t changed it since.
He represented being young, talented, and what it really looked like to follow your dreams. I’ll never forget what he stood for, and I hope the world never forgets neither.