Acting as a résumé of sorts, that beginning run of tracks earned him the right to stand on his own. A cartoonish Danny Brown came to life during the Adult Swim single, “Worth It”, before A$AP Ferg introduced us to his psycho uncle. “Norf Norf” and “All Nite” (with Vince Staples’ verses) gave way to the Oxymoron outtake, “Gravy”. Always the gentleman, the guy behind the keys courted the crowd with a few bangers before inviting us into his personal ‘upside down’. No longer scouring the internet for sounds to manipulate like silly putty, before drowning them in a viscous concoction of his own making, the tracks credited to Clams Casino are now all homegrown. The set kicked off with “Level 1”, the instrumental track that opens his first proper album of original material.

Volpe turned out to be the perfect host of his own material. With room to breathe, the material is able to shine on its own. Unlike many hip-hop productions, Clams’ material actually benefits from the lack of vocal distractions. The BasedGod’s absence on this stop of the tour was definitely noticeable, but the lack of an emcee wasn’t necessarily a bad thing.

Volpe’s attention was split between the turntable and his laptop throughout the night, with very little interaction with the small, but very diverse (girl in mini-dress arm-in-arm with dude in a Converge t-shirt) crowd of about 200 people. Dual projection screens teased the prospect of cool visuals to augment the set, but nothing more exciting than a changing color palette around the CLAMS CASINO XXXII tour logo was ever delivered. The man behind the sound that defined much of A$AP Rocky, Vince Staples, Mac Miller, and Lil B’s careers looked like he could be the little brother I never had. Shaved head, groomed beard, long-sleeves and jeans he was nondescript in every way. The 29-year-old producer came out, at around 12:45am, looking like he just walked in off the street.

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