Man on the Moon (Virtually): The Kid Cudi Venues VR Concert Experience

Image courtesy of @superspherevr

A day after Christmas, Kid Cudi worked with Supersphere and their ArcRunner virtual production platform for a VR concert on the Venues App following the December 11th release of his Man on the Moon III: The Chosen album. Despite being a VR novice, I got my hands on an Oculus Quest 2 and decided to check it out. I spent around 20 minutes familiarizing myself with the technology, before wandering into the Venues app, creating a custom avatar and making my way to the show.

I was dropped into the show with roughly 20 other people (avatars) facing a stage set up, fittingly, on the moon. Although there were more than 1,000 people attending the show, the Venues app automatically creates new “theaters” whenever one theater gets too crowded. I hadn’t yet played with any chat settings, so I was able to hear conversations taking place as well. It seemed a fair number of people had either joined the lobby with their friends, or had already made some new ones. As Cudi appeared and began performing “REVOFEV,” off of the second Man on the Moon album, people began to sing along. In person, people singing along is charming, as the noise of the performance does a good job of drowning it out, but with a headset on, one either has to perfectly navigate the chat settings to be able hear the chat just enough, or do as I did and simply go without it. There is risk associated with going silent in the chat though, as some lucky Reddit users actually got to do a bit of a Q&A with Kid Cudi during the performance. Imagining Kid Cudi slapping on a Quest 2 and appearing at his own VR concert is heartwarming. It shows he cares about his craft, and actually participating in the chat shows he cares about his fans. Though I am fairly confident that I was not in the same lobby as Kid Cudi, I can’t say that with 100% certainty because I gave up on that feature so early in the performance. 

Once I decided to go chat-less, I was immediately impressed by the sound quality of the show. I was just listening through the embedded speakers in the Quest 2, headphone-free, and Cudi sounded great. Supersphere visuals were also impressive, the moon concept was played upon in a fun way with asteroids overhead, craters functioning as lights, and the backdrop of space used as a canvas for more intense light performance behind Cudi. The colors chosen for each song worked, such as the green fog effect used for “Ghost!” At some points, it was nice to just tilt your head back and listen while watching the asteroids roll by and seeing what else is going on in space. It’s not too surprising that it all worked, as Supersphere worked directly with Kid Cudi’s creative lighting and visuals team.

Moving around the venue is done with the toggle stick on the controller. Other than that, avatars only have the abilities to move their head and hands, and certain effects that result from combinations of hand gestures and controller interactions, like smiles, frowns, and the ability to take “virtual selfies” with a selfie stick functionality within the Venues app. This also creates hilarious sets of dance moves during the concert. Some avatars doing rap hands, others keeping them in the air, and other people, who clearly have their controllers in their lap as their avatars arms appear twisted in a way that is completely inhuman. Watching avatars do these little hand dances is the perfect kind of secondary entertainment for the concert itself. At a regular concert, the secondary entertainment can be found at the bar, by dancing, and even by simple people watching. With the Quest 2 on your head, you are completely reliant on the things on screen to keep you entertained, as doing anything external is a bit of a challenge. Despite this, it feels like a different enough experience where you don’t find yourself really comparing it to being at your favorite venue while it’s taking place. 

Kid Cudi’s performance was excellent. He’s such an entertainer. It was a solid hour long set, which is probably the right length for a VR show. It was only after the show that I imagined him in a room in front of a green screen performing the way he did. His enthusiasm certainly helped with immersion, taking you out of your living room and bringing you into his world. Although I will say there were a couple awkward “put your hands up!” and “how’s everybody feeling?” type transitions between songs that, even though you have the avatar, just kind of felt silly - as I imagine it may have for him while performing for a camera and a small team. Potentially the most notable thing about his performance was the fact that Cudi only performed one song, “She Knows This,” off of the new album. I thought he was simply opening up with some of the older stuff, which ranged from his previous Man on the Moon albums to songs like “Reborn” off of Kids See Ghosts and “Surfin’” from 2016’s Passion, Pain & Demon Slayin’. Around 50 minutes in, I realized the show was almost over and shortly thereafter he closed the set with the lone Man on the Moon III track. It was certainly a good pack of songs for the whole “performing on the moon” vibe, but I did think it was strange that he didn’t lean into his newest project more. 

In our present pandemic situation, the VR concert experience is your best option. That’s probably obvious. The only real issue with that is the issue of accessibility in two parts. The first is that although the concert itself is free with the Venues app, the system required to get into that audience isn’t exactly cheap. There’s an argument to be made that you have to buy a ticket to get into any concert, this ticket just happens to be a few hundred dollar VR headset that gives you free access to future concerts as well. The other issue of accessibility is that marketing this experience to an older generation might be a little difficult. I will certainly acknowledge the fact that I was at a Kid Cudi show, so a younger audience makes perfect sense, but I don’t know if you could book Sheryl Crow and expect a great turnout. It’s unfortunate that anyone not well off enough, or who isn’t particularly tech savvy still lives in a world where the closest thing to a concert they can get is a Tonight Show performance. The audience that exists for VR concerts now, to a certain extent, is the same audience that will likely exist when things return to normal – people with the extra cash and the interest. 

With all that being said, when the time comes that in-person concerts (in whatever form) return, there will still be a place for this kind of virtual event simply because they’re fun and they’ll still be fun when they aren’t the only game in town.