Take note, aging Pink Floyd fans: Kanye West's Glow In The Dark show is the most spectacular visual experience that has ever been put on a concert stage, at least for a pop music tour. If the custom-designed incidental music hadn’t been so loud and continuous, you would have been able to hear (and with the frigid, rainy weather, possibly even see) the audience's gasps as the stage was unveiled; a hydraulic platform in the centre of a bumpy moon-scape, buffeted by expertly art-directed jets of dry ice, flame throwers and an enormous screen onto which alien skies were projected in all flavours of the bubblegum rainbow. It was like a black light poster come to life; for once the restrictions on cameras made sense, because seeing it in person without any preconceived notions is the best way to experience a spectacle like this.
There’s only one problem. Any '80s babies out there remember the ride that used to be in the basement of the CN Tower, Tour Of The Universe? That extremely theatrical and elaborately-staged motion simulator that was supposed to be just like taking a shuttle trip through space? Now imagine if the fake astronaut leading you into the simulator kept telling you about the racism he's experienced, how Jesus saves, and of course, how awesome he is.
In the show, a one-man (and I do mean one man – the only other person on stage was Lupe Fiasco for his thirty-second guest verse on “Touch The Sky”) space odyssey that finds Our Hero crash landing on a lonely planet with only his ship’s computer to talk to, “Gold Digger” comes in when Kanye decides that he’s been on this cold planet for a long time, and he needs “some pussy.” Which is funny, but as the beat kicks in, it couldn’t be a weirder juxtaposition between the earthly and the otherworldly.
“Gold Digger” was one of the biggest pop singles in decades for a reason. Kanye tells us how not to get led down the garden path, in deliciously earthy barbershop talk (“she got one of your kids, got you for eighteen years”). The galloping beat is good, but the detail — the intimacy, the lines that could be taken from conversations we’ve all had, or at least heard — is what makes it great.
But here, the concept overwhelms whatever it was he was saying. Even when the beat sounds sci-fi enough to fit the theme, as on, say, “Flashing Lights”, it just doesn’t work to hear him rapping about paparazzi while pretending to be on Mars. By putting the concept above what he’s actually saying, the show implicitly tells us that the meaning of his words doesn’t really matter. It’s hip-hop. The words are the whole fucking point.
Or maybe it isn’t? Just like how I always thought hip-hop shows were about community, not celebrity, I always thought “Spaceship” was about being stuck working a demeaning retail job when you know you could do better. Maybe it’s just a song about a spaceship. Sorry, Mr. West. My mistake.
RIHANNA, N.E.R.D., LUPE FIASCO
For all his ranting about how groundbreaking his show is and how those who criticize it are just “scared”, Kanye could take a lesson from Rihanna. What’s more freaky — a guy pretending to be alone in space, or a short-haired woman who dresses up in sci-fi-inspired outfits including a boxy red robot costume and a funereal black robe complete with cowl (for “S.O.S.”, which curiously didn’t meet with much crowd interest) and defies R&B convention by singing more than she dances? The Barbadian chart topper continuously surprised us, whether it was inserting M.I.A.’s “Paper Planes” into a medley of pop hits designed to get the crowd going, or slowing the show down with a version of “Unfaithful” that proved she’s more than a disciple of Auto-Tune. And of course “Umbrella” was, in her words, all you need and more.
N.E.R.D. were less than what you need, which is to say, less entertaining, less interesting, less fun. Not only did most of their instruments get lost in a murky haze that was all bass and nothing else, their lumpen rock (see “Everybody Nose”, or don’t) made you long for the between-act music. You know you’re in trouble when the in-house cameraman would rather zoom in on one particularly striking video vixen pulled from the front row than on Pharrell.
Lupe who? Due to various logistical mixups, I only caught “Superstar,” the fourth song of Lupe Fiasco’s opening four-song set. It seemed competent enough, but probably not enough to warm the crowds waving their umbrellas shivering on the muddy lawn.