Recap: PROF “The Gallery Tour” with GRIP and FUTURISTIC at The Webster in Hartford, CT

I (Rob Smittix) wasn’t too familiar with Prof before just a few weeks ago when my sister-in-law Amanda invited me to come along to Hartford, Connecticut for a  show at The Webster on Friday April 26th. Amanda is a big fan and I am always interested in what she has to recommend when it comes to music. I started binge watching Prof videos to get familiarized with his music and now I can honestly say, Prof keeps popping up and saying “It’s me again, I’m in your algorithm.”

My brother Jay and our friend Courtney came along for the adventure as well. We all worked our full time jobs that day and at about a quarter to five we all piled in the car and headed for Hartford. I brought a bunch of beverages with me because I’m always parched and just about the time we hit Springfield, MA, I was ready to burst. Yes, I’m like a little kid on a road trip, I always have to pee. But… we weren’t stopping now because we were getting close. Finally we got off of our exit and we hit the first gas station that we could find. I could barely walk by this point because I suppressed my urine stream to the point that it hurt. I did make it to the restroom, thank God and I’m pretty sure that if we documented the stream flow that I could have been eligible for the Guinness Book of World Records.

Now that we got that resolved we had to check into our hotel. Everyone that we ran into during check in was also headed to The Webster to see Prof. We found our room and pre-gamed it for about 20 mins and then we called an Uber. When we arrived at the show, Jay had a bunch of mini-bottles on him that for some reason my rebellious brother thought he was going to get in the theater with but… they were doing some serious pat-downs. So we walked up the block and we decided to start pounding the bottles. I had a bottle of root-beer that I mixed with SoCo but then no one else could finish what they had… so I proceeded to add some kind of whiskey and 99 Bananas into the root-beer as well. Surprisingly, it wasn’t horrible.

Now that we could enter past The Webster’s security it was time to step inside. I of course was doing my John Travolta strut to the Mobb Deep that the DJ was playing to hype the crowd. We ordered a bunch of drinks and got ready for the show. Futuristic came out first and unlike Grip and Prof, I was already familiar with his music and I got to say it was a nice surprise to see him there because I had no details about this show and had no clue who the openers were. He killed it!

Grip was amazing too, now just because I wasn’t familiar with his music before Friday night doesn’t mean anything, I love discovering new music for myself and Grip will definitely be getting spins on my radio show now. When Prof came out he had a white ski mask on and the crowd went ballistic. All he had to say was “Make some noise Connecticut!” and it was on. I’m pretty sure I was dancing and jumping around, spilling my drinks all over people for the duration of the show. We had a blast! Prof is 100% a show that you want to see, full of energy and the crowd was full of good people. No wankers in that audience.

I barely remember the Uber ride back to the hotel because I drank way more than I normally would but how’s the saying go? When in Hartford? We ordered a Pizza somewhere around 1am and it was amazing. I know Dave Portnoy raves about New Haven pizza but perhaps Connecticut in general has fantastic pizza, it was one step beyond! I really don’t remember much after that except being woken up to take advantage of the hotel breakfast. I finally made my way down to the lobby and all I wanted were the home fries but they said they were having issues with their oven and I waited for what felt like an eternity but I did eventually get my home fries and we safely made our way back to Albany!

All of these photos were taken with my cellphone: