Kanye West
I arrive just in time to hear Kanye West’s haunting entrance music blasting through the Manchester Evening News Arena and hurtle down the steps to fund my seat before I miss everything… but it’s okay, the stage is still dark. Panic over.
After annoying everyone by squeezing past to get to my seat Kanye bursts into life and starts wandering the stage, which has been ‘transformed’ (and I use that term lightly) to look like the surface of the moon before going over to speak to his ‘spaceship’s computer Jane to discuss how they were going to get off this planet they had landed on.
Yeah, you think I’ve gone crazy don’t you? But no, in fact, Kanye had decided to adopt a space theme for his Glow In The Dark Tour, and repeatedly conversed with this giant LED screen throughout the show in a bid to get off the planet he had crash landed on and get back to earth. Very Backstreet Boys.
Although don’t assume that this cheesy get-up made the show anything less than fantastic because it really was a brilliant night, despite the fact that Kanye didn’t actually interact with the crowd once, or in fact smile.
The arena was full of wannabe gangster’s wearing those annoying ‘sunglasses’ with the slits in that Kanye has pioneered, and most of the crowd had been kicked out for being underage before the curfew anyway… very gangster’ Yo!
The first big hit of the night was Gold Digger which went down a storm with the crowd after Kanye announced that all he wanted was “some pussy†and ‘Jane’ started dancing around on the LED screen clad in just a tiny g-string and bikini. Score for the lads in the audience… however I would much rather it be Kanye himself writhing around in his undies.
The highlight of the night had to be Stronger which he made last for about 10 minutes, and when we though he was done, he blasted out another round of the chorus much to our joy.
I know it sounds daft to say, but Kanye’s voice is just as incredible live as it is on your CD player, I really respect artists who can pull off live shows and still sound incredible. However, the lack of much ‘performance’ did let him down a bit as it would have been nice to have seen him dancing, or at least have a couple of dancers behind him.
On the odd occasion he did talk to the crowd it was usually an arrogant comment such as; “When you go to other shows, don’t be disappointed that they aren’t as good as me.†and as good as he was… I think a Take That show with dancing and clapping might go down a little better than people just doing their best hand gun impressions.
To be fair though, it’s arrogance that has made him who he is today, and he has every right to be arrogant in his position. Although I thought another highlight of the night was when he told Jane he “wouldn’t spazz out at award shows anymore!†if she got him of this planet… it’s great that someone as big as Kanye West can still have a dig at himself.
Overall, a great show which included all his best hits, although the failure of an Estelle appearance during American Boy was a bit disappointing, but it was made up be Kanye’s enthusiasm when performing the track as he darted around the stage like a mad man.
The final song / encore came in the form of his latest single Love Lockdown which, as someone who wasn’t a huge fan of the song, ended up being the best song of the night, yes, ever better than Stronger as he really put his all into the last song, on the last date of his 2008 Glow In The Dark Tour… surely that should go down in history?
FemaleFirst - Ruth Harrison