By KEVIN JACOB
Staff Writer
Welcome all to another edition of Kickin’ It With KJ. I apologize for my absence as it’s been that dreadful time of the year: Finals. Taking care of final papers and cramming away for useless tests that can’t even determine what you’ve actually learned. But I digress. I’ve been quiet on the music reviewing and haven’t had a whole lot of time to dedicate to the column this year. Since this is the last edition before break (and New Year’s), my resolution will be to keep the column more on a weekly basis next semester.
But now on to my review. A few short weeks ago, I and The Chronicle’s own Jackson Wang went to go see Yeezus Christ himself, Kanye West, at what is considered one of the best venues in America: Madison Square Garden. Kendrick Lamar was also set to open for him, so it was a great two-for-one deal. I’m a big fan of both artists, so saying that I was heavily anticipating the show was an understatement. And at about StubHub’s retail value price of $100 for barely decent seats, I was hoping that the show would at least be worth the price that we had spent on our tickets.
Before Kendrick opened up, we noticed that we wouldn’t be able to see the ginormous screen over the stage for when Kanye eventually came on. For some reason, it was tilted and if you were in the higher up sections on either side, chance was that you wouldn’t be able to see it. There were many smaller video screens of what was going on around us, but it wasn’t the same and I was a little pissed off. I brushed it off and Kendrick Lamar came on.
Kendrick had an accompanying band with him and had three screens at the back of the stage showing various videos of his hometown Compton while he performed. It was pretty awesome to see and it really complimented his set well. Kendrick came out to “Money Trees,” and my heart was practically in the back of my throat, as the bass was at deafening levels. This wasn’t a huge problem, but with the bass and the sound system, which was off for some reason, it was incredibly hard to hear him. This basically ruined Kendrick’s set for me and made it very disappointing. He did perform a lot of his hits and he even performed the rare first verse off of “Sing About Me.” Jackson and I were praying that Kanye’s sound was better because if it wasn’t, we knew we would be going home furious. Thankfully, Yeezus came on and then s*** got real.
A bunch of scantily clad models walked out with what looked like pantyhose masks on their faces. And then they walked to this huge mountain that was set up and stand around it. KANYE HAD A MOUNTAIN IN THE ARENA. A MOUNTAIN. Who else could do something like that? And then Kanye came running out onto the stage and performed “On Sight” while wearing one of his many Margiela masks that he wore for about 90% of the show. Yeezy then went on to kill songs such as “New Slaves,” “Blood on The Leaves,” “Send It Up,” “I’m In It,” “Through the Wire,” and “Diamonds.” One of the highlights for me during the show was that when performing “Cold,” a.k.a. “Theraflu,” towards the end of the song, the sound guy messed up and the instrumental stopped playing. Kanye just looked towards where the sound guys were and you could tell that somebody was definitely going to lose their job. But then Kanye started doing the last verse of “Theraflu” ACAPELLA. The crowd was going crazy and Kanye showed that he is a great performer. He demands your attention. His presence alone had people going nuts.
Before the concert, I had been seeing online that during almost every Yeezus tour stop, Kanye would rant about whatever was on his mind. This show was no different and although some rants were bored, I thought it was amazing as he talked about wanting to just be himself and to create things. He compared himself to Walt Disney and Steve Jobs. Yeezy showed his frustration with NIKE and blamed their CEO for not having the Red October’s coming out on time. “HE SAID THEY STILL HAVEN’T RELEASED THE OCTOBERS OR THE YEEZY TWO’S. I HAD GAVE THEM THE IDEA FOR THE YEEZY TWO’S FIVE YEARS AGO”. He said that Google’s Eric Schmidt was in the house and that he wanted him to invest in DONDA, Kanye’s creative company. I’m not incredibly sure what they do, but it sounded dope regardless. Ye kept saying “WHO THINKS ERIC SCHMIDT SHOULD INVEST IN DONDA?! GIVE ME A CHANCE”. Then he got so fired up that at the end of the rant, he literally ripped off his mask and kept ranting. He then put it back on and continued the show.
In the end, Kanye performed all of Yeezus and then had bits of songs from every single album but Late Registration for some reason. “Through The Wire” had to be one of the best songs of the night as everyone was throwing up the ROC sign with it. Finishing the night with “Bound 2” was pretty sick as well. This dude literally had snow, fire, some crazy demon looking thing on the mountain, White Jesus coming out, fireworks going off INSIDE, and had near naked models carrying him at one point as he performed. The Yeezus tour was definitely one of the best shows that I’ve ever been to and it was also one of the most artistic that I’ve ever seen. This definitely made up for not being able to see him in the 10th grade for The Glow In The Dark Tour. All Hail Yeezus Christ.
Rating: 10/10
