Donald Glover/Childish Gambino Warehouse Live May 3, 2011

WTF is "nerdcore"? That's what we went out to discover last night at Warehouse Live at the combination comedy and rap show performed by the same dude, Donald Glover, whose rap style as Childish Gambino has been lumped into this weird subgenre.

Glover raps, acts on NBC's Community, does stand-up, sings and, to top it all off, he's super-buff. All of this didn't really convince us, however... we'll explain the breakdown later.

First thing you need to know: Warehouse Live was packed with serious, die-hard fans: fans that told us every release he's put out since 2008 and who were wearing his "signature" red jacket. Question: Since when does a red AmApp jacket become someone's signature look?

Anyways, Glover came to the stage promptly at 9 p.m., as advertised, to do some standup comedy. Pretty entertaining stuff; he name-dropped some celebrities and made fun of people. He "video chatted" and bantered with James Murphy of LCD Soundsystem, and then suddenly got another call, this time from himself...from the future.

Future Donald Glover was calling him to warn him what would happen if he continued to do both rap and comedy. Present Glover left the stage and was suddenly on the big screen with Future Donald as the conference continued.

Future Donald - who had a hook for a hand and a fake 'stache - warned Present Donald that other rappers would try to copy him by combining standup and rap. Just as he was about to throw away his raps - the crowd screamed out "NO!!!!" - Future Future Donald stopped him.

Present Donald has a change of heart and decided to come running to the show as his band onstage began the crescendo to his entrance. At this point, we thought, "OK. No more Donald. No more of this guy. Too much."

So, Childish Gambino comes to the stage to a writhing audience who moved us in a current of high school counterculture. After a deafening introduction, he performed one of his most popular tracks, "Freaks and Geeks," and we watched as almost everyone in our vicinity screamed back the words.