'We Gon' Be Al --': Kendrick Lamar starts ACL Fest set late, breaks curfew, is cut off

Rapper Kendrick Lamar's Friday night performance at Austin City Limits Music Festival will likely go down as the shortest headliner set in the event's history.

Around 8 p.m. on Friday, fans of K-Dot staking out spots for his 8:40 p.m. performance on the skyline stage at Zilker Park were met with a disappointing message: The Compton rapper's set was delayed due to plane issues. Further updates were promised. For over an hour (while Lumineers played on the other side of the field), fans already disappointed by the cancellation earlier this week of Colombian R&B pop sensation Kali Uchis waited for the promised update.

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Around 8:50 p.m., a light show performed by dancing drones in the sky over the field provided a welcome distraction. In the lull that followed, some fans began to give up and started streaming out of the park, but most of the crowd was determined to stick it out. Fans held onto their spots. In one pocket of the crowd a singalong of Biz Markie's "You've Got What I Need" broke out.

Finally, at 9:23 p.m., festival organizers put a message on the stage: Kendrick Lamar would play an abbreviated set beginning at 9:45 p.m. With park curfew at 10 p.m., we debated exactly how abbreviated this set would be. The answer? Very abbreviated. Deeply abbreviated. Barely a set.

K-Dot hit the stage as promised right after 9:45 p.m., fast rapping "N95" like he was running against the clock. Plumes of fire and smoke erupted from the stage to match the furious flow. He whipped into "ELEMENT," letting the song build and then settle into a slowed down groove.

"Anybody alive right now?" he said, finally addressing the crowd that roared in response. Then he brought the funk and led the crowd in a bounce on "King Kunta."

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With the frenetic pace of the rearranged show, camera work felt off. Dancers on the stage remained in shadows as the crowd rapped every word of "Backseat Freestyle." As Kendrick quick-mixed into "Swimming Pools (Drank)," the dancers moving in slow motion behind him finally played on the screen.

A song later, curfew was blown as we rode through the streets of Compton on "M.A.A.D. City," the dancers forming a pyramid and falling, creating a choreo-poem of one of the most gripping rap songs of the century.

"How y'all feeling out there," Kendrick asked to another roar. He scoffed at the curfew. "They're going to have to cut my mic," he said. (Somewhere a city official and a disgruntled neighborhood association member cackled.) before launching into "DNA." He ran the stage as the dancers marched across it and the music built to a cacophony.

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The stage went dark and moments later opened on a street scene. One of the dancers wheeled a garbage cart around, and a kid on a skateboard whipped around the stage to the tune of "Money Trees."

At this point, it was clear that he was quick mixing hits to try to get as much in as possible. When the opening bars to "Alright" played, the crowd went wild. But the excitement over the song's instant catharsis was rapidly dimmed with the sound. Around 10:15 p.m., his mic was cut. He tried to keep the crowd chanting, but within a few minutes, it was clear the night was over. Hands in prayer position, he bowed several times. And by 10:17 p.m., the night was a wrap.

"It was very good, but very short," a woman remarked as we trundled toward the exit. She was not wrong. It was a glimpse at the set we were hoping to see.

Kendrick Lamar will headline the second Friday of ACL Fest next week.

ACL Fest is here! We have answers to all your questions. Here's what you need to know.

Kendrick Lamar at ACL Fest weekend one setlist

• "N95"

• "ELEMENT"

• "King Kunta"

• "Backseat Freestyle"

• "Swimming Pools"

• "M.A.A.D. City"

• "DNA"

• "Humble"

• "Money Trees"

• "Alright"

This article originally appeared on Austin American-Statesman: The shortest ACL Fest headliner ever? Kendrick Lamar plays 30 min set