Mac Miller plays encore at spring concert

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Mac+Miller+encourages+the+audience+to+participate+in+a+call+and+response+song+during+Saturday%E2%80%99s+Spring+Concert++in+Lantz+Arena.

Chynna Miller

Mac Miller encourages the audience to participate in a call and response song during Saturday’s Spring Concert in Lantz Arena.

Katie Smith, Editor-in-Chief

The stage at Lantz Arena was not reserved strictly for Spring Concert artist Mac Miller, but also the two women from the audience who the opening act, Clockwork DJ invited on stage to “twerk” with him.

Clockwork DJ requested two girls join him on stage and dance while he performed a song titled “Clocktwerk.”

The DJ, who situated himself between both women while they danced, said he liked the look of Eastern’s student body.

“Eastern, you have some fine a** ladies here,” he said. “She’s sexy.”

Stevie Roberson, a sophomore art major won free meet-and-greet passes during the reveal of the performing artist in late March. Roberson said she was surprised when the two women took the stage.

“I definitely wouldn’t have gone up there but go them for having the guts to that, I suppose,” she said.

Miller greeted the standing audience with a sudden wave of a heavy and seemingly familiar bass line, and lyrics from his 2014 album “Faces.”

The now 23-year-old released his first mixtape, “But My Mackin’ Ain’t Easy” in 2007 at just 14 years old, and his since amassed a net worth of roughly $10 million.

The crowd reacted most to Miller’s performances “Best Day Ever” and his final encore performance “Donald Trump.”

Roberson said she has been listening to Miller since 2011, and although she enjoyed the show, she wished he had played his older music.

“I would maybe see him again if he was going to play older songs because I didn’t know a lot of the newer ones,” she said. “If he was at a musical festival or something that I was at I would definitely go watch him.”

Although the arena was arranged with seating for the audience, University Board members were quickly forced to remove chairs when crowd members crawled over the seats and stacked them on top one another to create standing room.

One audience member jumped from the balcony seating onto the arena floor to make his way closer to the stage.

Although the audience was under Miller’s command to keep their hands up throughout most of the concert, the artist shifted moods momentarily to take to the piano and play “Youforia,” the song Miller said is his favorite to perform.

Dressed in a tie-dye T-shirt and a snapback hat, the rapper took a moment to talk music with the audience.

“My favorite music is the kind that takes you away from where you are currently – that takes you to a different place,” he said.

Roberson estimated about 15 people attended the meet-and-greet after the show, although she said she could not help but feel disappointed with the little interaction fans were able to have with the artist.

“We all walked into a classroom and then they posed us for a picture and then he came in for a minute and posed with us and then left,” she said.

“I was a little bit (disappointed) but then again I don’t really know what I would have said to him.”

Although Roberson might have found herself speechless, local businesses have been reaching out to the rapper through social media throughout the last few days.

When local bars caught word that Easterns’ University Board could not provide the artist with the tobacco and alcohol he asked for in his contract, establishments were quick to tweet at Miller, although there is no confirmation of Miller attending any of the town bars after the show.

Ike’s bar tweeted, “EIU couldn’t come through for you, but we did. @MacMiller – excited to meet you after the show,” along with a photo of two meet-and-greet passes and an assortment of alcoholic and tobacco products.

Katie Smith can be reached at 581-2812 or [email protected]