Photos: Free Wyclef Jean 420 show at CU in Boulder draws unbelievably paltry crowd

By Dave Herrera Fri., Apr. 20 2012 at 6:12 PM

Update: YouTube video of Wyclef Jean's freestyle added below ("For the record," he sings, "I would never sell out," presumably in response to the anti-MJ clause of the contract), along with video from the Denver Post of Jean's brother surrounded by students and smoking up in an effort to get more people to the show and a recap from the show.

Nick Callaio

The arena didn't change too much from sound check to the end of the show.

From the sounds of it, there are probably more people lingering on the sidewalks surrounding Civic Center park right now than are at the Coors Event Center on the University of Colorado campus for the free Wyclef Jean show. Backbeat's own Nick Callaio is on hand and says there's maybe 400 people in the arena right now. "The crowd looks like a herd of penguins huddled together," he says. "It's almost like a private party with the dude who ran for the president of Haiti."

Nick Callaio

The scene from CU this afternoon. Wyclef Jean doing his best to rock a meager crowd.

William Breathes

The scene today at Civic Center Park. Looks like a few more people showed up.

2MX2 rockin' the crowd at Civic Center on 4/20.

As you can see, there's a lot of empty seats in the arena, which holds eleven thousand and some change. Not to mention, if the figure that has been floated are accurate in terms of Jean's guarantee (it is, $80K), that's a large sum of money for such a paltry turnout.

Nick Callaio

Plenty of room to groove up there apparently. Security guard to spectator ratio looks to be almost one-to-one.

"You can tell he's a little irritated by the turn out," Callaio offers. "Before he went on, him and his brother were out on a golf cart trying to recruit people." According to Callaio, despite a clause in his contract that reportedly prohibits him from mentioning marijuana, Jean was freestyling about how the people who put on the show said not to talk about marijuana.

Even though it's a meager crowd, Jean is still giving it all he's got and treating the people to a show, and those who are there seem to be very enthused about the set, which so far has included some Fugees tracks, some Bob Marley covers (appropriately enough), a "Smells Like Teen Spirit" cover into Jackson 5. "He is doing anything to hype the crowd," Callaio reports.

Page down for a full recap of the show, more photos, including a shot shared by Wyclef Jean himself on twitter and a video of Jean's brother smoking up on the quad.

Tags:

coors event center, meager turnout, sparse crowd, university of colorado, wyclef jean 420 show shockingly low turnout

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revraygreen

was that a Mitt Romney rally ?

Guesto

awesome

The Spleen

So if 8000 (and it sure doesn't look like eight thousand showed up, but we will be generous) students attended up and the school paid WJ $80,000.....Wow. What an amazing waste of money.

Guest

I hope someone seriously considers the liability for those involved with the decision to put on this event. The breach of fiduciary responsibility is glaring. Whoever was in charge of these funds had a legal responsibility to ensure they were put to good use, these pictures hardly look like good use.

Guesto

amen

I think the CU Regents need to RESIGN. They are obviously not suited to run the college. They are the reason that tuition costs are spiraling out of control. These idiots are forcing younger people to take student loans to pay for this insanity. 80K F-ing dollars.... plus event cost so thats more like 150K total. And now they want kids to take loans to pay for this? Loans that can NEVER be bankrupted out of. SLAVERY LOANS for this?

Resign CU Regents, you are harming the students long term financial well being forcing them to pay for crap like this.

GiGiRamone

WJ is a professional and puts on a great show. i'd be there if i could.

backbeatmod

A lot more people probably would've been there had it been open to non-students, which obviously it wasn't. Sounds like the people who were there got treated to one hell of a show.

Colorado Mmj Patient

Nice work CU. Looks like that 5% tuition raise went towards something useful...

Donkey Hotay

Phil DuiStefano's $390,000.00 salary.

I bet Colorado could hire a recent CU grad who needs work and he would do a better job. Serious 400K a year. This is out of control. Jerks like this who get paid 400K a year are making decisions that have increased the average cost of college 800% since Reagan. He gets paid so much that he must think we all do. He and all the other Regents who make this obscene money and obscene spending decisions need to GO. I bet we could save the state a few million a year alone. That would lower the cost of tuition for everyone.

Then after that, cut the football program down to a real size. Sorry but paying a coach obscene money for a learning institution is wrong too.

Student loans are immoral and the CU Regents are forcing increases in the cost while wages are going down. Student loans are the ONLY loan in America that you can NEVER bankrupt out of. They are a lifetime of debt slavery to the big banks. Time to fix the system. First step.... CU Regents RESIGN

Student

Wyclef was supposed to start at 4;00, but didn't make it on stage until almost 5:00. He as out with the protesters at 4:20 blazing away. Check youtube for proof.

Guesto

just wait til the Student Loan bubble .

Ron Paul 2012

José Trujillo

Agree completely with you, thanks for your post. Wyclef made more than a couple starting salaries combined. Though I'm sure Wyclef was at the 420 afterparty