God said yes: Omar Apollo captivates fans at Forest Hills Stadium

After exiting the E train at the Forest Hills-71 Avenue stop, fans of Mexican-American pop singer Omar Apollo walked down Continental Ave, passed Austin Street and turned right onto Burns.

The 27-year-old pop sensation is currently on the “God Said No Tour,” named after his most recent album released earlier this year.

The doors to Forest Hills Stadium opened promptly at 5:30 PM on September 7 and the band Laundry Day was scheduled to perform at 6:15 PM.

Omar Velasco, better known by his stage name Omar Apollo, was scheduled to perform at 8:15 PM just after his second opener Malcom Todd.

From the moment the doors opened, an endless stream of fans steadily poured into the venue, emptying water bottles and leaving umbrellas on the sidewalk.

While many fans waited outside the stadium for others, Laundry Day could be heard from a distance.

Beyond the metal detectors, fans were immediately greeted by an array of food stalls and long merchandise lines. Fans had the option to enter directly into the stadium, which many had done to secure a spot closest to the stage.

By 8 p.m., concertgoers had begun scanning their tickets and wristbands issued to allow re-entry into the stadium.

Todd closed his performance by singing a cover of “Leave It All To Me,” the opening theme to the Nickelodeon show “iCarly,” originally sung by Miranda Cosgrove.

The stage began to fill with smoke and spotlights shined on different parts of the busy pit. Suddenly everything went dark until a single blue spotlight appeared. Then the entire stage started flashing blue until about a minute later, Apollo was revealed in smoke and standing in the center of the stage. Apollo, the pop star who “started from scratch” and who originally didn’t know how to sing, began showing off his impressive vocal range as he performed his entire set list for the crowd, including a mix of songs from his older albums.

A live band accompanied his singing, including a drummer and guitarists. Interpretive dancers circled around him as he performed.

During the “Ivory Tour,” which took place at the Kings Theater in Brooklyn two years ago, Apollo wore a sparkling black jacket and pants that shimmered and flashed with his every move.

This year, Apollo wore a white jacket and pants that also shimmered and shimmered as he danced, sang and expertly played his guitar across the stage.

Later, the lights in the room turned deep red and the screen behind Apollo showed an enlarged image of the Mexican flag.

During this time, Apollo paid tribute to his Mexican heritage by singing a traditional song entirely in his native language. The crowd responded with a roar and the lyrics rang through the hole.

Photos of Apollo in his youth began to appear on the screen, together with his family members, as the singer continued the tribute to his heritage, which he had also done during the ‘Ivory Tour’.

As predicted, it started to rain halfway through the concert. Nevertheless, the energy remained vibrant as Apollo continued to sing.

After the singer reached the end of his setlist, the crowd begged him to play one last song before he left. Apollo sang ‘Go Away’, the seventh song on his album ‘Ivory’.

After the singer left the stage, some of his bandmates and dancers began throwing guitar picks and other objects into the crowd that hovered excitedly near the stage.

In 2017, the then 20-year-old Indiana resident was “recording songs in his bedroom and driving around in an old car that kept breaking down on the highway,” according to Complex.

When Apollo was 17, he got a job at McDonald’s. “I want to make music,” he told NPR in an interview. “So then I got a job at McDonald’s and then I saved up for a laptop, I saved up for a microphone, and then I just started with those two.”

After releasing his first single “Ugotme” on Spotify in 2017, Apollo “woke up the next day and said the ballad had already racked up tens of thousands of streams.”

The singer rose to fame after releasing his first full-length album ‘Ivory’ in 2022, which earned him a Grammy nomination for Best New Artist in 2023.

The singer appeared as the opening act for SZA’s “SOS Tour” in 2023, and for two of the Mexico dates as part of Billie Eilish’s “Happier Than Ever, The World Tour” the same year.

His song “Evergreen (You Didn’t Deserve Me at All)” became the most popular song on the album, with most of the gains attributed to TikTok’s algorithm.

Apollo has released five studio albums to date. His latest album entitled ‘God Said No’ was released in 2024, two years after ‘Ivory’.

The “God Said No Tour” is still in full swing, but is expected to end its U.S. leg on October 11 after the final show in San Diego. Apollo will perform on October 1 at the Washington Music Theater in Seattle, Washington, with support from artist Kevin Abstract.