AP has a certain vision of how he sees the dancers.
The more time we have to rehearse this performance
and go through the choreography,
the better it will be for us.
We're going for more of like a modern-day approach.
So in terms of taking a risk with this,
we do have a bit
that gets a little spicy in the set,
it's a song called "Hills. "
I'm going around, you're going doing your thing
and I'm behind you, looking at you, looking at you…
like giving attention to the people.
And then we have our moment.
We're trying to spice things up for that one segment.
So that should be interesting to see
how everybody takes that one bit.
-That's it. -Yeah. You feel good?
I feel good.
I didn't know the tour was gonna be this much work.
It was hella lot of work.
People only see, like, what happens on the front side of it.
What goes in the back ends of it is a lot of work.
This needs to be dark with the visualizers and light.
After he enters the stage?
No, no, no. Red. So…
And I didn't want, like,
North America to wait any longer for the tour,
but trying to do a tour in a month,
it was a challenge.
Hey, yo, yo, yo. What the fuck?
If you look at big artists that are putting together tours,
they usually have, like, a year of preparation.
There's a lot of investment in this.
I don't want to lose money on this tour.
Everything is a risk. Every decision we make.
When the stakes are this high, then everybody has an opinion.
A lot of people said it was not doable.
"You're not going to be able to pull it off. "
"Window is so small that, like, it's impossible. "
But we've worked hard, like, you know?
Every hour, every minute counts as to what we're doing now.
It's one thing to do an arena tour as it is.
It's one thing to do it under the circumstances we were under.
Generally speaking, like, these tours take an awfully long time to put together.
We don't have time as our friend.
We've blown up so fast, our trajectory has gone so high,
we haven't even had time to breathe or learn.
You don't usually see quick 30-to-50-to-60-day-turnarounds ever…
at this level of touring.
When we do roll-outs on tours,
we generally have a team of, you know, 50 or 100 people
on a label with visions and creatives and all this kind of stuff.
On this, we got a bunch of guys who put their brain together.
So we had, like, what,
seven, eight people working on it?
Nine people?
Everything is good, we're just on our way.
The opening act?
It's "Intense. "
Every city will be slightly different.
He'll be in Calgary, we'll have someone different in Toronto.
Okay, Daddy.
Is Grandma okay?
I'm from the Gurdaspur district.
Village, Mullianwal.
When the situation in Punjab was bad,
our family struggled a lot.
My grandmother raised me.
Are your feet bruised?
No, my feet are fine.
I was brought up with a single parent.
My sister and I struggled a lot.
Because of these circumstances, I always thought
I was a big failure.
Okay, okay, Daddy.
I remember when I came here,
I didn't have a credit card.
I had to sleep outside the hotel.
I kept my two suitcases and slept outside.
I met a lady and she asked me,
"You don't look homeless, why are you sleeping outside?"
So, she helped me. I got a room.
And some rest.
I got to ring back home.
It was my dad on the phone.
You still got Amrit,
while I'm talking to my dad.
He'll slap the shit out of AP.
He's just wishing us, all of us, like, you know,
Gurinder, me, Shinda… everybody, whole team.
We're blessed to be doing what we are doing.
Not many people are able to do arenas…
of their own,
and… I'm just excited.
Like, there's always going to be butterflies in the stomach.
Like every show, doesn't matter, like, it's the last show of the tour,
I always feel like that, like, you know,
but I think it's natural.
And if you don't have it, it's just not a good show.
You don't care about it enough, right?
So, I'm always just like… 100%.
I'll be wrong if I say I'm not nervous.
But it's a good nervous, like, you know?
The journey has been, like, crazy.
From a little garage studio to arenas.
Like, it's been like a fucking journey, you know?
Saving money and trying to put together shit,
and coming here?
Bro, I used to drive by this.
I was like "Yo, one day we'll perform here. "
And guess what? First Canadian show is in fucking Rogers Arena.
Let's go.
I'm more emotional than nervous.
Sorry, man. I don't cry usually.
Doing this independently? That's what makes me more proud.
And being able to bring my brothers with me, like,
with me.
It's not just me, you know?
There are a lot of people on this team.
Is Shinda and… all are here?
Herman's here, so I'm assuming Shinda and the others are here.
I can't show this face to them.
If I… If I act weak, then everybody's fucked.
It's about that time, Singhy!
-You ready? -The least nervous I've ever been.
How's it going?
-I'm good. -You're good?
-How are you? -I am fine!
-Our people. -I know all about it,
-it's really good for you. -Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Holy.
Yo!
It's gonna be a lot of people.
I've never been here, yo.
Just walking into the arena, and even if it was… when it was empty,
that's when you realize, like… shit.
Like… it's crazy.
He's never been to an arena.
-Any arena! -Yeah, none of us have.
I've never been to Rogers Arena.
I've never actually even been to an arena.
Never seen a sports event or a concert,
so, you know?
This is gonna be a brand-new experience for me,
and I know it's gonna be the same thing for AP and the whole gang.
The general progression of an artist is,
start off with little clubs,
go to theaters,
go to bigger theaters,
and then maybe in year four or five you go to arenas.
Three years ago, they were just releasing their tracks,
producing in their bedroom,
and now they're selling out arenas.
We confirmed our first tour, hoping to get like 20 to 30,000 fans
and we ended up with 60,000 across all the shows.
So I think this was really like a stamp
that kind of woke up the whole industry to…
"Holy shit, who is this guy? What is he doing?
How did he do an arena tour his first time
when we don't even know his name?"
Let's do it.
-Yo, this is sick! -God!
This is fire!
Right there?
Just like right here.
This one.
Everything else is, I think, we're good.
He pulled it off.
He actually got…
a show in Vancouver, in Rogers Arena.
Not bad, sir.
Not… not bad.
Without me, world,
you would not have this good-looking,
soft-singing AP Dhillon.
Tellin' the world about how he feels deep inside.
What happened?
Yes.
The only thing with the merch that happened today…
-Yeah. -is the tour hoodies didn't come,
but we have the "Brown Munde" hoodies.
They shipped all of one style and it was supposed to be half and half.
-Why? -I don't know.
Where are they shipping it from?
Where did it come from?
-Yeah. -It came from Toronto.
But, like, this was the place…
We've been going over it for, like, a while, you know,
the details of the merch.
I can't do anything at this point, right?
Like, shows right now.
Either I'm going to be upsetting myself
and yelling at people, like, there's no point.
Like, it is what it is at this point, you know?
Yo, Big One. Outside.
-Okay? -Yes.
Give me two minutes.
How long do I got?
You have time, don't worry. Don't rush my haircut.
This is not the day to fuck shit up.
Okay!
Yo, Kevin, everything else is good?
Everything's perfect.
Regardless, you sell tickets or not,
to rent that place, to organize that all,
to make it happen,
we had to take the risk.
And it was a lot of work to do.
Like I realized, "Yo, it's not easy. "
I need to figure out how long it's going to take for the sound check.
Okay. Okay.
Shall we go check it out one time? Let's just see what's going on.
-Owen. -Yeah?
-Are would still good on 3:00? -Yeah.
No.
Where… What's… Where are we at?
Right now, we're at 2:30.
-Yeah. -We just got the stage in place.
We got to run it one time, bro.
We're going to run it two times.
-No, no. -No, it's 85-minutes of music,
so we can't run it twice.
At 5:00 p. m. I have--
Well, we have to run it twice.
-Because-- -I know I wanna see it, too, but--
At 5:00 p. m. you have what?
-Meet-and-greet. -Meet-and-greet.
6:00 p. m.
-At 6:00? -But he's got to get ready too.
I'm going to do the soundcheck. I got to get ready.
I cannot just walk off the stage and just be like, "Hey. "
A lot went into production,
making sure everybody else…
we hired are doing their job.
What are we thinking, like, where are we at, like, 3:30?
Will we be ready by 3:30 or no?
-The sound check we can do. -Okay.
Hopefully… soon.
Don't do this to me, yo.
You know how the moon reflects on water?
That can go in… from here.
-So you want it dark from this point? -This is good.
Like, put this night now.
If we want this, it should have nighttime reflections.
It should be bright enough so we can see it.
But not too bright.
Just play with those…
So, one part of the visualizer just throws off the crowd.
So, like, it gets too bright in a place it should be dark.
So whatever this guy needs… He asked me if it's possible.
The show doesn't start till fucking, you know, seven o'clock,
so, in my mind, "Yeah, man, it's possible. We're gonna do it. "
The ice underneath, right?
-Yeah. -Oh.
-Yeah. -Singhy, look between the gaps.
It is.
Owen!
Is this LEDs gonna go up more or is this where it's gonna stay?
-The video wall? -Yeah.
You want it there?
I personally think your LED can go up a little bit.
Yeah.
I don't think they'll be ready by 3:30 p. m.
I have to push them, bro.
Like, I've got to run it one time, motherfucker.
Yeah.
The clock is ticking.
And then you're always, like, one problem away
from the whole thing falling apart.
Most stressful bit was,
trying to put all this together.
The venue. Staff…
Pyros…
Security…
All the visualizers…
CO2s…
Catering…
Lasers…
The choreography…
Figuring out the merch…
Hotels, cars…
Outfits, stage-managing…
Organize the "Brown Munde" track
with a bunch of group of people.
Ticket sales, promoter.
Like, every little thing
was just, like, stressful, man.
Yo, where's my laptop?
Yeah, I just need to-- Oh, there he is.
Yeah.
Play that one time.
Press space on it.
One thing that isn't often talked about…
Solo it.
…is how all AP Dhillon's tunes are mixed.
It's just loud.
It's just amazing.
Nothing that comes out of that camp
is mixed and mastered by anybody else other than AP Dhillon.
I would say it's unique
because I can shape the sound the way I want to.
And that's just crazy
because that never happens with artists.
It's always tech heads and nerds
who become these amazing mixers and masters.
Apparently, AP Dhillon is that guy.
I mean, better than before.
-It sounds better. -Yeah.
When I first played AP Dhillon on the radio,
I got quite a few texts saying,
"What is this?
And why are they singing like that?"
Because with Punjabi music,
a lot of singers learn in a very formal way.
They were literally singing like how they talk
when they're bantering with their friends.
I think that what's great about AP
is even when you do have Western arrangements
he is still using that beautiful, rustic language.
He used the melody that comes from Punjab,
and used the groove that comes from funk.
And there you have magic.
The reason AP Dhillon and the entire operation's done so well
is they really do represent
the generation in the Punjab
who have grown up with social media,
but they were able to also translate that
to the diaspora South Asians as well.
Brown Munde!
Someone who has been born in Luton or Bradford
or Vancouver or Toronto,
also people growing up
in the villages, people in India
who themselves have never been to the main cities.
That's something you can't buy.
Do you want them to come on in your verse? Because…
Don't you think it will be too much
-if it's all the way through the song? -The whole song.
-The whole thing? -The whole thing.
-From the start? -From the start.
Done.
So AP wants you guys in from, like, the starting of the song.
And when I say "go, " you guys… you already know.
So there's, like, no gang signs.
There'll be elders here, so we have to be respectful.
There's a lot of people,
there's 14,000 people that are looking at us.
Let's be serious, not goofy, like… no, like…
"Yo, what the fuck are we doing here? Yo, ha, ha, ha. " You know what I mean?
There's going to be flames being thrown.
Last thing we want is, like, the beards to come off, half of it, you know?
Yo, play the song.
You guys are walking in now.
Get together as close as you can.
And the song's about to drop, like, everybody has to just start moving now.
Just start moving, you know what I mean? There you go.
There you go. There you go.
And it has to be like this throughout the whole thing.
Cool.
You see how you guys are together? It looks fucking crazy.
That's it.
So guys, it's a long song,
so prepare yourself.
I haven't heard a thing coming out of audio monitors yet.
I got to get sound. I got to… I got to get this going.
I'm two hours behind.
6:45, now, is the meet-and-greet.
You got to push back because of the sound check.
Okay. Okay.
Can we punch some production guys right now?
-It's rigging guys. -Yeah.
I think one run-through will be good.
Yeah. One run-through will be amazing!
Yeah.
-At least-- -If we can get it.
Yeah, I got to talk to the sound guy.
I think AP's the type of guy that you always want in your corner.
I don't think things get done unless he's pushing the envelope, to be honest.
He's a real go-getter, and that's what I like.
All the masters has different volume.
So they're not like…
when I was making music in the beginning,
I was making all the music in a garage studio,
so my room was like five-by-seven.
-Oh, okay. Yeah. -Like, my whole career is just, like,
that big a room on a shitty monitor, right?
I'm trying to learn mix-master.
I'm doing everything on my own, right?
-So every master level is different. -Okay.
So that's something that you're gonna have to… gauge it.
Yeah, I've got dynamic compressors I can use.
Yeah. And what we love about our music when trap is going,
crank the bass as much as we can.
The low end is just our… like…
-Yeah. All right. -Oh, okay. Yeah. Okay.
He needs 15 more minutes.
Oh, God, that's really pushing it, man.
What are you gonna do?
So, you gonna push back your meet-and-greet?
Yeah.
Bro, I'm waiting, man.
Like, these guys are fucking super-late, bro.
I'm a little bit pissed.
I'm supposed to be gone in rehearsal at 3:00.
They have to hold the doors now.
When he announced it, I was so happy.
I was like, "I want to see this guy live, " and I'm going to see him live today.
-We're actually from Colorado. -Yeah.
-We flew three hours to come here today. -Yeah.
We got here at 3:00, and the doors open at 7:00.
I'm really excited to see him. I've been waiting for months.
Where's the pyros? All set?
It's getting there.
It's not just we didn't rehearse the show,
it's like I'd never dealt with a backstage as big as this.
And for me, it was like,
"Oh, my God, I've got to deal with all these people
and everyone's looking for me for answers. "
And it's like, "Who the hell am I?"
At this point, it's like, I'm like a rookie at this.
Are we gonna be able to start in ten minutes?
I just need this fucking sound on, I need these mics on.
You know what the problem is? Because you haven't done it, right?
The rehearsal. That's kind of like slowing it down.
We can't push doors at all?
Let me talk to them. Even a half-hour would help.
Let me see if we can push doors to 7:30.
-Yeah, Please, please, please. -Yeah.
I thought pushing doors was like the cardinal sin, right?
I'm thinking, like, this is the worst thing in the world.
When you're just new to it, you just don't expect it to happen.
Being naive kinda helps you sometimes, but sometimes it hurts you
because you just put more pressure on yourself
than you really should.
What the fuck is happening? Are we good to go?
Owen, are we going to do rehearsal today or not?
Yeah. Yes, yes.
One! Two! Three! Let's go!
This is fucked.
Yo!
This drop was weird.
Play it again.
It cracked.
As soon as the drop hit, it just like…
Things might go wrong. Things go south.
Those are the things you need to accept.
And as an artist,
everything is a calculated risk,
but you got to take that to make a show happen.
I pushed it 30 minutes, the doors.
It might take longer.
-I just started. -Alright.
This is more important than meet-and-greet.
Alright.
Sound check, it was just that we were delayed.
The main thing is we had this meet-and-greet
that we scheduled for every show which kind of
gave us a deadline of a certain time every show we had to be done by.
We've got an hour of rushing around, then we can chill.
Guys, guys, let them get ready.
Everyone out, please.
All right guys, we gonna have AP with the guests,
I'll be taking the photos from here,
and you guys do whatever you want to do.
Sit back.
And then… yeah, ready when you are.
Gotcha. Beautiful, guys. You're good to go.
Bro, what's up with your flash? And like… Is everything good?
-Hi, nice meeting you. -Nice meeting you, as well.
One, two…
-Hi. -Hi.
-It's just running mad late. -I know, I know. I see
-Can I ask you for something? -Yes.
It's my little sister's birthday…
Could you please sign it?
I'm so sorry. I know this is an inconvenience.
Our whole schedule has been butchered and rearranged.
I think we are the masters of working under pressure
and doing things last minute.
Whatever the fuck happened doesn't matter now.
We're going to do everything in our power to put on the best show.
Come over here, broski, come here.
Check the drip.
Come on, man! Tell me what you got on real quick!
-How much for the vest? -Some chains…
-How much for the vest? -I don't even know.
How much for the shirt?
You know who's swiping cards? Where's…
Oh, it's this guy.
-My bro's dripped down more than ten Gs. -Come on.
-Ten Gs is just from here to here. More. -Come on, come on.
Everything's priceless.
He can be wearing a dollar shirt and a $10,000 vest, bro,
we're still going to do this for our people that love us.
We started in a fucking basement.
Look where the fuck we are, look where we're going.
Let's fucking do this.
Three-two-one! Brown Munde!
Everything really starts to hit home
when you see people having fun.
You ain't shit.
You're just standing there and your mind is going through memory lane.
Like, these guys were literally in a garage when I met them.
We had no money to our names.
We had no support.
When we started making it, people were telling us
you're a one-hit-wonder.
And all this doubt that people put in you, and it's just like…
I don't need to say anything,
you just see it.
They're having fun.
It's just beyond reality at this point.
AP! AP! AP! AP! AP!
They're on in four!
My anxiety starts before going on the stage.
Yo, let's go!
Gurinder, come!
The biggest challenge, I think,
was getting ready mentally to see so many people.
Thirty seconds!
The crowd's packed. We're hearing the noise.
AP! AP! AP!
Check, check, check.
We hear that fuckin' roar.
Bro…
Oh, my fucking God, bro.
It cannot be said how much work
leading up to the tour,
leading up to the year before, the year before,
and everything we've all gone through in our lives,
how much of that all played into that one night.
AP! AP! AP! AP! AP!
Six, five, four, three, two, one.
When I stepped out, the whole stadium went so, so crazy.
Our city… And we did it! We made it happen, somehow.
It felt unreal.
There, at that moment, I just stood and took it in.
Holy fuck! Like, you know.
It all worked out,
but obviously, there's so many things that could have been improved on.
My headphones broke.
No, no, no. Cut it, cut it.
My ukulele broke.
We thought it's going to work.
We'll do it without it.
I got a little mad on stage and threw my mic stand.
There's probably more things that AP doesn't even know that went wrong.
The lasers were supposed to come a certain way.
That didn't happen.
Pyro wasn't used as much as we wanted it to be used.
Fucking this and that.
Like, what's going on? What's going on?
But you know what, at the end of the day it's the first show,
it's kind of getting used to the motions.
Despite all the ups and downs,
we put on the best show possible.
People were always saying just start small, build up,
and whatever.
We just blew the door off the place.
Vancouver, thanks for having us, love you all.
Let's go! Let's fucking go!
All that hard work, all those long days…
Let's fucking go!
Those times when you're fighting with each other
and you're arguing and you're frustrated
and you feel like it's the end of the road with shit
and you keep going
'cause you know one day it's gonna be that one moment
and, like, today was that moment.
Amazing.
AP, we love you, man, we love you!
We keep moving this way.
Like, this is just a beginning, not just for us, but for everybody.
-He is an up-and-coming artist. -Yeah.
His first-ever concert at Rogers Arena,
like, this is a pretty big deal, you know what I mean?
Sky's the limit.
Let's fucking go!
Final numbers sold, right there.
-Fire. Fire. -Yes.
I don't even care to tell the world how many tickets we sold.
That's not our dream come true.
It's a step towards our dream.
There's no time to celebrate.
The Vancouver show's like a rocket launch,
we launched successfully, but now we got to make it to Mars.
But Toronto's a whole different animal.
Almost 14,000 tickets sold.
We're hoping that we go into this Toronto show with zero hiccups.
Toronto is the biggest so far.
Holy fuck.