For over an hour and a half, opener after opener rapped and energized Gabe’s into its signature vibration of seemingly everything. Each artist layered a new excitement onto the stage while remaining complementary for the upcoming main act, Dax. 

The crowd, ready to comply with anything the show asked for, waved phones, jumped on command, and sang along. 

Dax, a hip hop artist who made it big on YouTube and is currently on his first tour, appeared on stage after chants of his name rang out throughout the crowd. 

“All I’m gonna do for the next 45 minutes is have an unbelievable amount of fun,” Dax said, hyping the crowd up for his first song. 

He began with, “Gotta Get It”, paying homage to his humble beginnings by wearing a janitor outfit. The getup was quickly taken off to reveal a white tank top that too would eventually get ripped off as the songs progressed. 

Dax was a natural performer who played well with the crowd. He began the first of a long series of crowd involvement with his call and response chant, “I got it cracking on my own.” 

Throughout his performances, Dax would grab the phones of excited audience members filming him and create up close videos of himself performing and the audience from his view before handing the phone back to the waving hand.  

Jumping down into the audience several times, he danced closely with a few audience members, putting his arms around them and creating audience-wide circles, who all jumped around him while singing choruses of songs like, “KILLSHOT 2.”

Taking a break from his songs, Dax invited one of the audience members to have a drinking contest with him on stage. The room filled with raising hands, but in the end, an attendee named Kyler joined him onstage, dressed in a janitor suit like Dax. Both of them took a bottle of water in their hands, chugging it down as the audience chanted around them — eventually Dax was left as the victor. 

Occasionally Dax brought the crowd down. Using these as breaks from the general electric feeling, he built up to play songs like “Dear God” and “My Last Words.”

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For his second to last song, he sang an a capella version of,  “She Cheated Again,” admitting that this is the first time he had ever sung the song live. He began without even using the mic, projecting his voice out in a different way from the rest of the night. 

A few times, he stopped, questioning himself for choosing to sing it, but audience members encouraged him. 

“We love you, Dax!” came from a few different audience members as he paused not sure whether to go on. 

Raising the mic back up to his face, he finished the song with the chants of the audience behind him.