Sunday's Super Bowl matchup at MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, NJ promises cold temperatures, which the NFL championship hasn't experienced since it was literally called "the NFL Championship." The Colden Auditorium at Queens University also dealt with atypical conditions when it hosted the first night of VH1's Super Bowl Blitz Monday. The venue—accustomed to hosting acts such as the Queens Symphony Orchestra and Italian vocalist Gigi D'Alessio—found itself filled with 2,100 raucous J. Cole fans.
Colden, like nearly every venue that shares the title "auditorium," features spectator seating to allow every attendee a reasonable view. Cole's devotees refused to be satisfied however. VH1 representatives implored fans to stay out of the aisles, but nothing could stop concertgoers from climbing atop the theater seat cushions as the headlining emcee walked onstage.
Cole gave his supporters good reason to lose their collective cool. The performer, who competently yet uncomfortably held down arena-sized stages as an opener for mentor Jay Z just a few years ago, has transitioned well into his new role as headliner. The "nice-guy-with-a-mean-flow" from Cole World has increasingly become a mean-guy-with-a-mean-flow following the release of 2013's acclaimed Born Sinner, and Cole demonstrated a considerable boost in swagger during Monday's performance, both in the lyrics from his most recent release and in the way he filled the auditorium's stage with confident personality.
Cole's backing band helped complement the emcee's front, filling in quieter portions of his lyrical onslaught with dramatic texture. Guitarist David Linaburg brought the house down by shredding his way out of "Nobody's Perfect," and the drummer's kick pedal lent an aggressive edge to "She Knows," a physical tone simply not possible from a programmed bass beat. VH1 contributed its own extracurricular instrumentals in the form of the Brooklyn Express Drumline parading down the aisles to open the show.
The headliner hails from North Carolina, but has hawked himself as a Queens product since attending St. Johns University (Queens packs a considerably more impressive hip-hop resumé than North Carolina). Cole opened the show by calling for Queens and Brooklyn natives to audibly represent their respective boroughs, opting to ignore the more obvious "Broncos or Seahawks" form of crowd engagement. VH1 itself didn't seem too set on the specifics of the matchup either: The network brought in NFL receivers Jeremy Maclin (of the eliminated Eagles) and Mohamed Sanu (of the eliminated Bengals) as midshow guest introducers.
The broadcaster's frequent pauses for commercial breaks (the show was streamed live), and banter between hosts Nick Cannon and Stacy Keibler seemed to be the only thing that could disrupt Cole's focus. The rapper transitioned from song to commercial-break-conversation by maintaining a flow throughout his first interaction with the audience, but he eventually gave up for the timeouts thereafter.
The final commercial break's silence was broken when a group of fans began chanting "Happy Birthday" a few minutes prior to Cole's official birthdate, January 28. He'll celebrate with a slightly larger gig Tuesday night at Madison Square Garden, and VH1 will continue its Super Bowl Blitz series with Janelle Monae at Lehman College in The Bronx.
Colden Auditorium adapted admirably to the change of scenery. Hopefully the NFL can pull the same trick for its own performance on Sunday.
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