San Marcos-grown boy band Brockhampton kicked off the Love Your Parents Tour on Jan. 16. The 14 person collective of rappers, singers, producers and designers is traveling coast to coast and started with four tour dates in Texas where Brockhampton’s roots were formed.
In efforts to engage with his fans Brockhampton member Kevin Abstract sent out tweets before the first show of the tour in Texas seeing which city would bring the most energy.
“Let’s see who wins Texas hm,” Abstract tweeted.
In 2010, founding member and Corpus Christi native Kevin Abstract posted on a Kanye West music forum looking for members to join his boy band. After successful responses to Abstract’s post, the group was formed and began sharing verses and beats with each other online to produce tracks.
Brockhampton took its next big step in 2015 when all members relocated to San Marcos where they lived together for the first time and recorded their debut mixtape, All American Trash. The success of this mixtape put Brockhampton on the radar and allowed them to take things a step further.
In 2017 the group relocated once again, this time moving to Los Angeles where the members recorded three studio albums and began their first nationwide tour, Jennifer’s Tour.
Fans grew ecstatic as the Love Your Parents Tour was announced this past winter. Most shows have already sold out despite the group’s effort to book larger venues than the previous tour.
Lines to enter the venue for the show in Austin on Jan. 20 stretched for blocks and some fans waited in cold, rainy weather a full 24 hours in advance to ensure they would be front and center for when Brockhampton took the stage. Abbie Blackwell, first in line to see Brockhampton in Austin on Saturday night, recalled her overnight wait.
“It was super sketchy we got approached by multiple sketchy people, we were in a van full of three girls for like four hours alone before anyone else showed up,” Blackwell said.
Aisha Robinson traveled all the way from Washington D.C. to see all four Texas tour stops.
“We’re on winter break so we decided to fly out for the Texas shows,” Robinson said. “We went to Dallas, we didn’t get to go to Houston; we got stranded because of the ice. We went to San Antonio, and now we’re here in Austin.”
Although the Austin show marked the last leg of the group’s Texas tour stops, Robinson said she still plans to see Brockhampton a few more times when she returns to the northeast for the D.C. Philadelphia, and New York shows.
“I never thought that I would be traveling the country for Brockhampton,” Robinson said. “I feel very represented in their music, I feel like each of the members brings something to the table. They each have their own stories.”
With mixes of melodic sing-alongs and all-out mosh pits, the group proved that it can captivate the audiences with a multitude of styles. A popular song, Star was encored multiple times each night as members asked the crowd to bring more energy each time, even encouraging fans to join them on stage for the last performance of the night.
After a busy 2017, Brockhampton shows no signs of slowing down in 2018 with festival appearances at some of the biggest names such as Coachella and Bonnaroo and the announcement of its next studio album, Team Effort, to release in 2018. Brockhampton’s habit of putting out as much content as possible leads fans to believe there will be much more to look forward to in 2018.