For those who have witnessed a festival performance from Migos within the past year or so, you’re pretty much set on what to expect. With DJ Durel on the 1s and 2s, the North Atlanta trio always seamlessly breezes through a carefully ordered selection of their top tracks, with the deepest cuts only ever being “Fight Night," "Hannah Montana” and/or “Handsome & Wealthy”—a treat for “day one fans” as Quavo always puts it.
Sunday evening at Coachella, though, Migos arrived with some new features—turning to theatrics and props a little more than usual—and offered up an impressive ode to their personal brand when they displayed bigger-than-life-size versions of signature chains belonging to each member.
For Takeoff that meant a build out of the piece he wears of an astronaut’s spacesuit outfitted with the head of an E.T.-esque alien head and the YRN namesake taking the place of a ‘NASA’ logo. Offset’s Bando chain, gifted to him by fiancée Cardi B for Valentine’s Day, served as his iced out representative while Quavo’s signature QC chain occupied the middle space while two large LCD pillars took the form of the group’s Culture II logo.
Migos aren’t full-on performers, an aspect that was balanced out by these add-ons and the energy that comes with a crowd prepared to mosh by any means necessary. Of course, a few other changes presented themselves this time around with the opportunity to fuse together both Culture albums as the usual suspects of “T-Shirt,” “Bad & Boujee” were now in the company of new smashes like “Narcos, “Walk It Talk It, and “Stir Fry.”
The only guest appearance arrived courtesy of fellow Quality Control signee Lil Baby who popped out to perform his hit “My Dawg” track. When “MotorSport” came on, fans got to sing along to Cardi B’s verse sans a physical Cardi B while Nicki Minaj’s verse was cut out completely, naturally leading many to dub the moment as one doused in shade in light of recent developments.