ShannonAlbert.com - June 2009

I like live performances a lot especially if they are highly produced, theatrical type performances (Michael Jackson concert was my favorite of all time - not only was he very talented but the production was top notch) so I was really looking forward to the Kanye West concert w/Kami on 4/29. N.E.R.D. and Rihanna were openers for Kanye and I like them all so it was pretty much guaranteed to be good.

Before driving to Oklahoma City for the concert, I had read lots of reviews beforehand and expected it to be one of the best concerts I'd ever seen.

It was good but not that good.

First of all, N.E.R.D. was on and Pharrell Williams drove me nuts. He has aged a lot since I last saw him (he's only 35) and looked more like Russell Simmons than himself. He kept repeatedly yelling "OKLAHOMA CITY IS THE BEST CITY IN THE WOOORLD!" and "FORGET ABOUT MIAMI, LA, NEW YORK CITY...THIS IS THE BEST CITY IN THE WOOORLD!"

Dude, seriously, you don't have to try so hard. Frankly, we'd probably rather be in those cities than in OKC anyway. He was a good performer and the whole crew was full of energy and fun but he came off as a complete tool.


Rihanna was next. She's so young and beautiful and recently popular that I kind of thought she might be big enough to headline her own tour. Except she didn't sound that great. Kami commented that it's hard for pop stars who are heavily produced to sound good live and she's right. Rihanna looked good but seemed disconnected, tried too hard to be sexy and on most songs, didn't sound all that good. I was hoping she'd bring Chris Brown on stage because I'm SURE he would have been awesome.

Last but not least - Kanye. First of all, his set is pretty large and appears to have a lunar/sand dune type of surface to it. Along the back wall of the set, there's a huge screen that displays various spacey images and a smaller screen comes down in the middle where he stands. He's the only one on stage the whole time, the band is in the pit and Kanye never really took a break (except for a random spot where he sat down and drank some water and Journey's "Don't Stop Believin" played while he sat...huh?).


The premise was that Kanye was on a spaceship that has crashed and he is trying to figure out how to get home. He talks to the smaller screen (which has an avionics type display on it) and calls his spaceship "Jane" and asks how to get home. He proceeds to go through most of his recent songs and performs very well. He had on a sweatshirt and also had a sweatshirt tied around his waist. He was pouring in sweat just a few songs in and I'm not sure why he had to wear 2 sweatshirts.


Throughout the concert he's talking to the spaceship ("Jane") and it's silly but his performances are very good. At the end of the concert, the spaceship finally is able to make it back because it's determined that Kanye is the biggest star in the universe and by his starpower, they are able to come back. Gag.


I'm all about entertainers having a little ego but I think he just went over the top with his cheesy scripted ego stroke. It's too bad though because he's such a good performer in between the cheese.