By Daniel Paiz

Lupe Fiasco, Gym Class Heroes, and B.o.B bring “Back to Basics” tour to Denver, as the tour kicks off in the Mile High City. The pairing of these three acts was not one I foresaw happening, but it worked pretty well. B.o.B brought the hype and energy to start the night, while Lupe Fiasco balanced his set with peaks and valleys of energy. Gym Class Heroes ended the night with laid back tunes despite the crowd being very excited to see them.

The night was one of intrigue, with a pair of openers before a pair of co-headliners.

Openers

Affliction Music

A Colorado duo that appears to be out of Colorado Springs, it took some time for the crowd to warm up to them. There were a handful of songs performed. A big night to be the openers for, they did their best and left with a sizeable crowd at the end.

B.o.B

This Atlanta rapper, flanked by his support DJ Space Cowboy, had himself a night. Not a lot of variety was present for the first half to almost three quarters of his set; hard hitting jam after jam. B.o.B apparently appreciates Colorado a whole bunch and made it evident throughout. Merch was tossed into the crowd, including some items that technically should not have been.

When there was a brief switch to some mellower acoustic versions of his songs, it felt like Bobby Ray was finding his strengths. Despite all the antics and flat-earther kind of stuff, when this guy delivers songs that aren’t party anthems, he has something to say. “Airplanes” with Hayley Williams launched his career into outer space because of the lyrics and reflections he wrote. It’s been 13 years since I’ve experienced his set (also with Lupe Fiasco but at the Ogden Theater) but he did a good job. The opening was a bit awkward because he wouldn’t finish a song for more than half a dozen songs, but things progressed.

The openers got the stage fairly warm for the co-headliners.

Headliners

Lupe Fiasco

If your first thought was “huh?”, as in isn’t Lupe the main headliner, you too think like this writer. From our experience, Lupe generally carries shows in both marketing and stage presence. There might be two reasons to explain why Fiasco heated up the stage for Gym Class Heroes. First, GCH are kind of in a comeback mode of sorts, so headlining likely helps with that endeavor. Second, there could be a stage tech reason, in that it is either doing a changeover from a DJ set to a band setup than vice versa.

Either way, Lupe had Mission Ballroom going off from track one. “Go Go Gadget Flow”, “Words I Never Said”, and “Kick Push” were in the first 20 minutes or so of his set. He also brought out a surprise guest, an emcee I don’t think I have ever witnessed at a Lupe show before: Billy Blue. The Florida MC appears on Fiasco’s “Tetsuo & Youth”, and he popped on stage for a song and after jamming with his musical conspirator, promptly left the stage.

The vibes shifted from high octane tracks to feel good jams for the ladies without missing a beat. Fiasco spoke to the crowd. Apparently, he lost a friend the same day of the opening show for this tour, so he shouted out said friend and pushed through that loss. There were no lapses in energy, the First and Fifteen head honcho delivered songs with pinpoint accuracy and was by far gained the biggest responses from the crowd.

“Superstar” and “Daydream” were a few of the closing tracks, and honestly, it felt like the evening was ready to be concluded. However, this was not to be so. Travie of the Heroes reminded us of this with his excitement and energy.

Gym Class Heroes

This group felt like they had gone off into the proverbial sunset with making new music, but Thursday night felt like a triumphant return to the stage.

The album “As Cruel As School Children” reaches its 20th anniversary in 2026, and that feels partially why this crew are getting the headlining slot. There’s an air of comeback in the ballroom, and Travie runs with that narrative to get the crowd involved from the jump. There’s jokes, anecdotes, and calls and responses peppering the performance.

“Cupid’s Chokehold”, “Cookie Jar”, and “The Fighter” start out the night and it seems like a good chunk of the crowd know these tunes. When other joints not at the same popularity levels drop, the excitement is fairly muted in comparison. The crowd does skew younger than this writer for the headlining set, so these could be folks whose parents played these tunes a fair amount.

The band did their thing, although the audience is never told the names of the drummer, keyboardist, and guitarist/keyboardist. Longtime fans might know their names, but this casual fan did not. The mics across the stage for this set sounded better than for previous performers, but only by a slight margin.

As the night wound down and “Ass Back Home” and “Stereo Hearts” closed out the set, there was yet another sense of completion. Tunes from across the spectrum of loud party joints to acoustic reflective songs filled this listener’s musical cup to the brim. There was also a serious hit of nostalgia, seeing acts from high school and undergrad; putting all three acts together on one billing seemed unlikely until it happened.

Here’s to more unlikely events unfolding as time pushes along.