An Awful(ly) Exhilarating Road Trip -- Isaiah Rashad at the House of Blues Orlando

11 hours ago

3 min read

Isaiah Rashad has made his mark within the music industry, mixing Hip Hop, R&B, and Soul into a unique new sound. He brought his iconic “Lil Sunny’s Awful Road Trip” tour to the House of Blues Orlando with opener, Alemeda.

Before any performances happened, Isaiah set the tone with pre-show visuals. They all had play-on titles from popular movies, shows, companies, with the words “awful” replacing specific words, my favorite being the High School Musical visual.

The concert opens with the energetic performance of Alemeda, an artist that blends alternative pop and rock into a thrilling experience. The clarity within her voice was the thing that stood out to me the most. As well, the way she controlled the stage with her physicality, from running up and down the stage to whipping her hair on the ground was truly impressive. She kept the audience captivated and focused as each song possessed the iconic factors of alternative music. The live heavy electric guitar and energetic drummer that made each song such pleasures to listen to. She performed her new song “ The World Keeps Spinning” and also an unreleased track called “I’m Done”.

She definitely set the tone as an opener, she kept spirits and prepared the audience for the main act. Alemeda mentioned it was her first time in Orlando, and I’d say she definitely made an impact; she’ll definitely be on my playlists!

Isaiah Rashad, the headliner of this tour, opened his performance with a beautiful video visual of him climbing out a crashed van, then onto the stage platform, bloody, with his opening song, “THE NEW SUBLIME”. The song speaks about his struggles within sobriety and how his life has shifted, the crashed van symbolizing how his life has changed, with an emphasis on the blood he has bled, he’s now a new man.

The tour takes us on a literal “road trip” throughout Isaiah’s life. He takes us back to his childhood, Chattanooga, Tennessee, where we see his southern culture shine in visuals before performing “Free Lunch”, a song that connects to his upbringing as a child.

Isaiah gave his fans some interactive moments throughout the tour; the artist played “What U Sed”, a song that embodies fun, youthfulness, tomfoolery and more importantly, community. A fan favorite that got its time to shine with the crowd, Isaiah got into the pit with a video camera and allowed them to sing along to the song as it projected onto the LED Screen. When his song “CAMERAS” came on he pulled two fans onto stage and allowed them to perform the song, then took a picture of them with the crowd on his disposable tour camera.

As the performance continued, I took note of the artist’s breath control, the way he allowed the music to take over his body and just flow outside of himself was beautiful to watch, you can truly tell his love and his journey with it.

The artist played a ton of his hits, such as “SCARED 2 LOOK DOWN”, “Wat’s Wrong”, “West Savannah”, “SAME SHIT” and a classic, “Headshots (4r da Locals)”, which was towards the end of the setlist and the energy was just as if the concert started all over again, extremely LIVELY!

Throughout this Road Trip, Isaiah took his fans through the journey of growing up, experiencing love, anger, and community, the things that shaped him as an artist, he shared his mistakes but also the things he loves.