Night Two of the House of Vans Off the Wall Party proved another raging house party from the opening snowboarding street demo to the closing ferocity of rapper Earl Sweatshirt that left the pulsing crowd stumbling up the stairs back into the blizzard with stupid grins on their faces. With a recent snowstorm, the pop-up snowboarding demo was all set to be sculpted out by the boards of New England’s finest and Vans team riders. Grinding on rails down a slope for the pumped crowds, Vans rider Nick Poohachoff even made an appearance. Crowds of Vans- and Supreme hoodie- sporting youths mobbed into the downstairs venue for the hip hop house party of night two.
Cities Aviv was the opening performance of the night. An eclectic hip hop artist with a voice, Memphis’ Gavin Mays (persona Cities Aviv), bopped with swag around the stage, feeling the beat before unleashing passionate verses. Oscillating between grooving and speaking a message, Aviv blended lucid hazy tracks with deep beats. He kept the genre blending going with the technicolor “IRL URL.” Aviv swung his arms through the air to the EDM beats as disco balls turned purple and blue shimmering lights over him. He left the crowd abuzz with a final message “Fuck with me, life is real.”
XXYYXX continued the eclectic hip hop blending, taking over the DJ booth to blend psychedelic techno jams with sick beats that had everyone’s hands in the air. Greeting the crowd with, “Something really fucking special is about to happen,” Marcel Everett (better known as XXYYXX) did not disappoint. Opening with some beat boxing and appraisals of his predecessor Aviv as, “Always pushing the envelope. That was fucking crazy.” With a “Let’s do this,” an ocean of electro tunes blazed from the speakers with a funky plucking, building the pace until full bombardment of eardrums in “About You.” Wafts of sweet smoke spiraled into the air as the bass slammed in “DMT.” He then picked up the pace with an EDM track and fast spitting rap track for his finale.
The highly anticipated performance of Odd Future’s Earl Sweatshirt had Vans flying through the air as stage divers, crowd surfers and moshers alike fed off his energetic verses and passionate delivery. Running onto the stage in a black hooded sweatshirt, Sweatshirt chanted “Hands up” before opening with the slow anthem “Centurion.” Joined on stage by his crew, hands were thrown in the air, swaying to the Mac Miller collab track “Guild.” The crowd sang along “I don’t fuck with no cops” while Sweatshirt hopped around the stage for “Hive.” The moshers rallied for the deeper head slamming, bass heavy beat of “Pre.” Crowd favorite “Hit Em Up” had the whole place chanting the chorus. For the final song, he had the crowd split in two down the middle. Making a competition between the crowds, Odd Future member Taco, aka Travis Bennett, took one side with Earl on the other as they pumped up the crowd for the final song, “Drop.”
