Canadian singer-songwriter Daniel Caesar has had quite an immersive rollout for his new album, “Son of Spergy,” released Friday, Oct. 24. For a month leading up to release week, he hit public parks across North America for free pop-up sets. After starting in his hometown of Toronto, he stopped in Los Angeles, Houston and Atlanta, before bringing the experiment to New York.
On Oct. 21, Caesar handed out a limited number of tickets to fans who won chess matches in Washington Square Park. 50 fans then packed Harlem Parish, where he live-debuted the entirety of “Son of Spergy” with a choir.
The night before his album’s long-awaited release, with fans eager to get their own taste of a free show, Caesar left his audience with a vague message on his Instagram:
“On Friday, and if you live in New York, just hang around Brooklyn. I don’t know what’s gonna happen, maybe nothing, maybe something spectacular. Around noon.”
Brooklyn’s a rather big borough. He didn’t give much information. Friday’s a weekday, and at noon, people are in class or at work. But, still, that didn’t stop thousands of die-hard Daniel Caesar fans from dedicating their entire day to making sure that they got to see him live. When else would you get a free performance from an artist as big as Caesar on their album release day?
Assuming he followed the pattern of performing in parks, fans speculated early that Caesar would go to Prospect Park, the second biggest public park in Brooklyn. This was essentially confirmed when Caesar liked a TikTok comment early Friday morning from user @trappedonjupiter that said, “I feel like it’s prospect park 😭😭.”
Prospect Park’s a rather big park. But at least fans could narrow down the borough to a single location.
Waiting for the clock to hit noon, hundreds of fans crowded the Lena Horne Bandshell, the primary location for live performances at Prospect Park.
Shortly after 1 p.m., the swarm at the bandshell broke loose. Hundreds of Daniel Caesar fanatics sprinted across the Prospect Park fields, turning the scene into a marathon. There was still nothing from Caesar on any social platforms, so people were just blindly following the crowd.
This resulted in a huge mob circling a man in a Spider-Man mask. Was it Caesar himself? There was only one way to find out. They all chanted for the mysterious masked man to “take it off!”
He never did, and was just standing around. Eventually, people got impatient and just walked away. Perhaps it was a distraction to help Caesar’s team set up at Lena Horne Bandshell. Some walked back to the bandshell, others waited around with Spider-Man.
The man in the Spider-Man mask would continue to parade around the park on his bike, with others following him around like a false prophet, in hopes that he knew the whereabouts of Caesar. This would go on for about three hours.
At this point, the day turned into a mass Daniel Caesar listener meetup with hundreds relaxing at Prospect Park, enjoying the new album, connecting with other fans and just waiting for any word from Caesar himself. It was well past noon, and after all, Caesar did say it was “maybe nothing,” so some started to lose hope.
Around 4 p.m., hope was regained. Caesar finally posted on his Instagram with coordinates in Prospect Park. The marathon was back on, and the flock of fans ran across the park to find equipment for a live performance.
Caesar’s co-manager and childhood friend, Devante Brown, was the first to speak to the large crowd, letting them know that the R&B star would be arriving soon, but emphasizing that they must stay calm and organized to allow Caesar’s team to set up.
Around 4:45 p.m., the singer appeared before the fans that have been searching for him for hours. He brought some star-studded company, joined by longtime collaborator Mustafa the Poet and English singer Dev Hynes, also known as Blood Orange.
The three sat down, propped up on their sound gear with their guitars, and the fans’ patience was immediately rewarded. They began the set with “Toronto 2014,” the acoustic track featuring Mustafa off Caesar’s 2023 album “NEVER ENOUGH.”
Caesar and Mustafa’s vocals graced the ears of the hundreds in attendance, while Hynes supported on guitar. With the crowd sitting on the grass and the sun beginning to go down, the intro set an intimate scene for a night that felt like a dream sequence.
Then came the new material, with “Moon (Feat. Bon Iver),” “Baby Blue (Feat. Norwill Simmonds)” and “Root of all Evil,” giving fans their first live taste of “Son of Spergy.” Between tracks, Mustafa played the role of an interviewer, asking Caesar questions about the process of making the album.
“Does it feel like you captured what you wanted to capture? It’s a big undertaking to talk about your father, talk about God. Maybe the two largest mountains of anybody’s life, you know?”
“I did, because it’s so honest,” Caesar replied. “That’s all I am, an amalgamation of all these homes and all these influences… But it’s also so big. You can’t get into the intricacies of everything, but with a broad brushstroke, you tackle it.”
He called “Son of Spergy” his most personal work to date, rooted in family and faith. “The creative process is a deeply spiritual process,” he said.
As the sun dipped lower, Hynes summed up the appeal of the voice everyone had chased all afternoon: “The thing with Daniel — and I know all of you feel this, which is a testament to you being here — is that as soon as he opens his mouth to sing, it is so special and direct. There are only a few people, in my opinion, in history like that.” With that, he slipped out, leaving Caesar and Mustafa to close the afternoon.
Caesar paused to focus on the moment more than the music. “When I play venues, it’s bright and I can’t see you guys. This is for me,” he said. Everyone stayed on the grass, close and quiet. He kept looking up between lines to catch faces. It felt less like a show and more like we were in the park with him while the songs took their time.
He reached back to the songs that built this crowd in the first place, pulling from “Freudian,” “CASE STUDY 01” and “NEVER ENOUGH.”
“ARE YOU OK?” and “Japanese Denim” had the lawn swaying. “Transform” and “Superpowers” came slow and easy. “CYANIDE” and “Best Part” loosened everyone up, and then he set up the finish: “I know you guys in New York are all like cool and stuff, but just one song I need you to sing really loud.” Caesar closed it out with “Get You,” the loudest moment of the night.
Earlier, Mustafa had asked the question that hung over the set: “If someone is going to walk away with one thing after listening to the entire record, what would you want them to leave with?”
After a day of rumors that still ended in an intimate show, Caesar’s answer felt like the bow on it: “Everything is fine. Everything was always going to be fine… There are so many times where I’m like, wow, I really f—ed up there, this didn’t turn out the way I wanted it to, or I wished I’d had this, then I would have been that. Everything is fine. And everything’s an adventure. It’s all about perspective.”
After all the uncertainty, the wrong turns and a Spider-Man decoy, it ended with a beautiful performance in the middle of Prospect Park, just a few feet from the people who ran to find it. On the very day that Caesar’s album was released, fans walked away with an unforgettable memory.
