Kanye West and Nine Inch Nails

No, the two are not playing together, at least not in the next few months.

In an attempt to put my work at the Tweeter Center to good use, I will try to give a quick review of all the shows I go to,and add to the fun and buzz on the Internet over this summer's epic touring concert schedule.

Friday, was Kanye West's Glow in the Dark Tour. It hit the Tweeter Center, fortunately it was not raining, although there were plenty of girls (and boys) inappropriately dressed for the weather. A bizarre crowd made up of a mix of parents toting tweens and their friends, scenesters and nerdy white kids, and black kids dressed as if they went to my prep school were in attendance. And I should not forget the group of excessively accessorized foreigners with limited English whom I assisted and was thanked with an ass grab. Overall ass grab count for the night was a measly two, but that is still two too many.
The opening acts were normal fare: Lupe Fiasco, N.E.R.D. and Rihanna. I had never heard of Lupe Fiasco, and his set was unimpressive and largely unintelligible. N.E.R.D. provided weird slowed down versions of their jams, and I was a touch disappointed that they were on stage too long, causing the whole concert to run 30 minutes behind schedule. Rihanna (whom I saw 3 times last summer working at Tweeter) did her thing like she always does, nothing overly elaborate, played her hits and got off the stage.
Kanye West...oh Kanye..on a stage looking like some sort of cross between David Bowie and a high school musical.. presented a weird space themed musical that was by far one of the queerest concerts I have ever seen. I have seen Hilary Duff and many a country concert with Ford F-150's rolling across the stage, but Kanye took it to a new level. Speaking to a disembodied voice known as his spaceship Jane, Kanye attempts to tell a narrative through his songs. Unfortunately, none of his songs are about outer space, or are at all narratively linear so this made it bizarre. The whole time he dances around on a stage that looks like the moon, with one section that raises up and down in a diamond shape. Whatever.
I get it, you want to have a high production value rap concert. I will give the man credit, it was a departure from the typical rapper and his posse on stage delivering their hits, but it was lacking. There is something to be said for going on stage and just rocking it out for 2 hours, playing your jams. That's what people want to see, they don't want some sort of bizarrely elaborate stage show, that looks hokey. Kanye did play all his jams (thank god). But he hid his band from view until the last 3 minutes of the encore, when he let the audience see on the screens that there was in fact a band back there playing instruments. Now, I think he paid too much because it sounded no better to me than a tape track used by any rapper. If he really wanted to break the mold, and seem less pompous, he should have had the band on stage, he should have interacted with the different musicians. He should strip down his music, make it seem fresh and live.
Kanye finished the night by proclaiming he is not arrogant, but in fact has high self esteem, and that "they" (the government? george bush?) want us all to have no self esteem, and that's why people aren't down with him. Yeah okay. I will be the first to admit, Kanye got catchy jams, but as Orlando Patterson said to me back in 2005 in Precalc class "Kanye should just stay a producer."

Nine Inch Nails came out with a free album this past week. It's good stuff, and a good deal. Head on over to www.nin.com to get your copy.

-Liz