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It’s taking me a very long time to write this piece because honestly, it’s been hard to put into words what I truly experienced at WayHome seeing Frank Ocean. And it really didn’t hit me until Frank finally came on stage. When I arrived I knew Frank would be the amazing highlight, but first thing first, the space of the festival impressed the hell out of me.

Now this past year, I’ve received Media Accreditation to cover, Canadian Music Week 2017, Manifesto 2017 and NXNE 2017, but WayHome was just a different breed.

The massive festival space, the camp sites, the energy of all the people, it truly felt like this grand thing, this pure musical festival, it was an amazing feeling when I arrived. And after arriving, my sister and I positioned ourselves to get an amazing look when Frank came out, which meant we had to sacrifice other acts. I personally missed out on Daniel Ceasar, who I’ve seen twice before, but still and Carseat Headrest.

But the main stage had it’s amazing acts as well. Someone who really surprised me was someone I hadn’t heard of before, Porter Robinson. His visuals were out of this world incredible. Even the songs he was playing, I was really into it. He had this energy about himself and the crowd was really receptive to him. Before he came out, there was one of my favourite artists Banks performing, but I totally understood why Porter Robinson was the act before Frank Ocean.

He just had this stage presence and he was truly the perfect fit. After being at WayHome for the whole day, waiting for Frank to come out, finally, there was his face on the main stage. It read, “Frank Ocean Up Next.” It still didn’t feel real. I had seen footage of him performing in the past couple of weeks and when he finally came out and walked on the catwalk right in front of me, I couldn’t believe I was inside the footage I had been watching. I was there, live, in-person.

All I could think about was wow! He’s right in front of me, he actually exists. Because for the past couple of years, Frank has been nothing short of a recluse. Generally speaking, he’s still a recluse. He has no Twitter, no Instagram, no Snapchat. He has Tumblr, but only posts when he feels he needs to, so he’s basically nowhere to be found. It’s just that being ghost online and being ghost musically, is when it starts to get real frustrating as a fan, which it was.

Because before releasing the visual album “Endless” to get out of his Def Jam contract to a day later releasing his “Blonde” album, musically wise, Frank was a ghost. Before these two album releases, he had only dropped the cover song “(At Your Best) You Are Love”,  had dropped the song “Memrise” and been on Kanye West’s “The Life Of Pablo” on the song “Wolves” which was later turned into “Frank’s Track.” To say us Frank fans were deprived of musical outpouring before he released “Endless” and “Blonde” back to back would be an understatement.

So to see him live, in-person, performing, It was insane. Then on top of all that insanity, him performing cuts from “Channel Orange” like “Forrest Gump” and “Pyramids” to performing cuts from “Endless” like “Comme De Garcon” and “In Here Somewhere” and cuts from “Blonde” like “Nikes” and “Ivy” plus new songs like “Biking” and “Lens”  it was like a collage of his music discography. It was one of these moments in life where you stop and you truly realize you are apart of this special moment.

And the visuals that Frank had too. The screen, everything was just meticulously crafted in such an astonishing way. When his set was finally over and everybody started dispersing and leaving, I was just left speechless. Did I really just witness this all? Did this all really happen? There is only one time in my life I left a concert feeling that same way and that was the Kanye West “Yeezus tour.”

Now I knew seeing Frank would be amazing, incredible, every positive word you can think of in the english dictionary, I mean me and my sister arrived early so we can see him up close, but to actually see him, to have actually been apart of it all, it still doesn’t feel real. And I don’t think it ever will.

MY MOTTO IS: IF YOU WANNA WIN THE LOTTERY, YOU HAVE TO MAKE THE MONEY TO BUY A TICKET!

From The 6ix,With Love

Thank You For Reading

Sincerely, Kid From The 6ix

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