Post Malone. What do you think of when you hear his name? Tattoos? Diamond grill? Bud Light? Super Bowl LVIII? Most Diamond-Certified artist of all time? For me, Post Malone will forever take me back to an October night on Daniel Island in South Carolina. As the East Coast was glued to the TV preparing for Hurricane Milton, while still recovering from Hurricane Helene, 10,000 people were escaping the real world for an evening of their favorite music. As the sun set and the stadium filled with eager fans in cowboy boots and graphic t-shirts, you could feel the excitement building! Credit One Stadium is not your typical stadium- its intended purpose is for tennis matches so you can imagine just how intimate the venue felt, even packed full.
Dan Spencer, a Tennessee native with a unique sound, supported Post Malone and The Fools For You. Spencer and his band play a little country music combined with alternative rock and some folk. They sang favorites like, “Eternal Platitude” and “Tennessee Buddha.” Spencer writes his own music and plays guitar- a triple threat in the music world! Malone also brought Muscadine Bloodline out on tour. The “Porch Swing Angel” singers, Charlie Muncaster and Gary Stanton formed the soulful country band in 2016. The band has been described as southern rockers with 90’s country vibes. Overall, the supporting acts were crowd-pleasers and fit in nicely on the F-1 Trillion tour!
Post Malone has a way with words and with people. He is a gentle, humble, and genuine person whose face tattoos and frequent “f#@%s” seem out of place because of his soft-natured demeanor and tender tone of voice. Addressing the crowd throughout the evening with little stories and huge expressions of gratitude was so refreshing. Posty is a 29-year-old megastar with more money than he knows what to do with, but he was wearing a vintage George Strait t-shirt, some cutoff jorts (a portmanteau of “jeans” and “shorts”), and the gnarliest looking Crocs while drinking out of his infamous Bud Light cup and smoking a nice, “girly” (his words), Camel Crush. Post Malone makes the crowd feel special at every show and somehow, he just seems perfectly relatable to his fan base.
Post Malone performed songs from his latest country album, F-1 Trillion with his touring band, The Fools For You, as well as some of his biggest hits from the past couple of years like, “Circles” and “Sunflower”. He announced an incredibly special guest midway through his set, and it was none other than Charleston’s very own Darius Rucker! The audience went wild seeing the two duet! They sang “Don’t Think I Don’t Think About It” and “Wagon Wheel” and it was the highlight of the evening for the older, Hootie & the Blowfish fans and South Carolina natives in the crowd.
As a geriatric millennial, I will say his fan base is extremely young overall but also so diverse! I saw babies, kids, and tons of tweens running amuck while their parents enjoyed food, beer, and a fun family night. It’s not too often that a mom and her teenage son love the same music, so it was special to see some old-fashioned bonding without an iPhone in sight. The bleachers that make up the nosebleed section were overflowing with high school and college kids screaming their hearts out every time Post Malone said something sweet about his daughter, his music, and his fans. At one point he said he knows what it’s like to be lonely, an outcast, and just a little different and I think all 10,000 of us could relate in that moment.
The tour has been an enormous success selling out across the U.S. and I imagine it was not something Post Malone took lightly when switching genres- he had said years ago he’d make a country album when he was 30 and not only did he do it a year sooner, the singer did it with country music’s finest: Dolly Parton, ERNEST, Luke Combs, Morgan Wallen, Blake Shelton, Brad Paisley, Hank Williams Jr., Jelly Roll, Chris Stapleton, Sierra Ferrell, Hardy, Billy Strings, Tim McGraw, and Lainey Wilson.
If you get the opportunity to catch one of the seven remaining tour dates, you may be lucky enough to see the iconic Ford pickup truck they dropped nose-first into Presa Salto del Nogal in Tapalpa, Jalisco. The blue 971 Ford F-100 has been on a tour itself, making appearances for photo ops at Raising Cane's and certain tour stops. The album cover artwork, by Gonzalo Lebrija, was commissioned by Post Malone and graced the cover of the F-1 Trillion album.
