The Roc was in the building
I've been dying to see Kanye in concert since the day I bought College Dropout. I almost went to last year's tour with Usher, which would have been awesome, but I think tickets were like $80 and I wasn't sure I'd fit in with the rest of the crowd. So needless to say, I couldn't wait for Sunday's show at the Patriot Center. I went in a little nervous that the crowd would still be a little more urban than us or that Kanye wouldn't show up or would be hours late (as has been known to happen) and I'd never feel the same about him again. And I wasn't pleased that Common, who I was almost as excited to see, dropped off the tour at the last minute. But everything turned out well in the end, and here are my grades for the evening:
Venue: B/B-
Seeing a show at a club or smallish hall is always better than at an arena, but the 5,000 seat (for concerts) Patriot Center is relatively intimate for an arena. Even 2 rows from the very top, we could see and hear everything well. The $50 ticket price was steep, and $15-$20 more than for the same show at some other places, but parking was free and it wasn't a nightmare leaving the parking lot.
Crowd: D-
It was an impressively diverse crowd. We saw everything from kids accompanied by parents to Volvo station wagon-driving couples to I'd say a pretty even mix of black and white. Most people were really into the whole scene, dancing and singing along and throwing their diamonds in the sky. However, there was also a noticeable contingent of George Mason students (or possibly younger kids) who either spent the concert doing drugs or were absolutely falling-down wasted. Luckily, 4 of them sat in our row. And after stumbling over our legs to get to their seats, spent the first 1/2 of the concert knocking into me and falling into the row in front of them. They were apologetic enough and not bothering the section too much so we let bygones be bygones. Until the one heavyset friend fell into the row in front of him and couldn't get up. And while the people he was crushing were yelling at him, the other friend who'd been sitting near comatose as his friends gyrated around him without a care starting throwing up on himself. And then projectile vomiting before the poor people in the 3-row radius he hit even had a chance to collect their belongings and scram. The kids had enough wits about them to get the kid out of there (without his shoe) at that point, but then they came back to watch the show! First one guy wandered up alone and tried to argue with the people in the section (who were about 90 seconds from turning into an angry vigilante mob) that he didn't throw up and didn't know why anyone was mad at him. He left, but a little while later the 2 ditzes he was with came back and went back to their vomited-on seats. So I grabbed them and said "Your seats are covered in vomit and everyone here wants to beat you up. Maybe you should find other seats." And they were completely oblivious and said something like "Yeah, our friends are really drunk. Sorry!" then stood in the vomit complaining "Ew it reeks over here!" I can't front like I've never been drunk at a concert, and I've had friends who've vomited at inconvenient times. But if I ever find out that I've raised children that act that braindead, inconsiderate, and worthless at life, god help them.
Show: A
Kanye put on an amazing show. Everything I'd hoped for (except for a surprise appearance by Jay-Z--we were sure it was coming when he started playing "Encore"). The set was cool, the sound was good, there was tons of energy, and he played for at least 1 ½ or 2 hours. He went through every song on Late Registration and most of College Dropout (except School Spirit and Never Let You Down--understandable since they're collabos) and even did some Jay-Z and Twista. The between-song gimicky things were fun, and he played parts of the original version of a lot of the songs he sampled, which I thought was cool. He seemed to be having a good time and wanted the audience to be into it, leading to memorable lines like (before "Roses") "Make some noise if you love your grandmother!" and of course everyone's favorite line, "White people, you better sing along, this is the only time you allowed to say [the N word]". Even Fantasia's opening performance was impressive. She sounded as good in person as on American Idol, and Baby Mama was a big crowd pleaser, naturally.
My only minor complaint was that the show seemed pretty scripted. The songs sounded just like they did on the cds and there wasn't a lot of ad libbing overall, but I suppose that's how most big-tour shows are. Also, by the "Diamonds are Forever" finale, I wondered if there wasn't some lip synching going on...He did a lot of "letting the audience sing" in the previous song, and Diamonds just sounded a little more perfect than the rest. And I was disappointed there was no encore, but again, maybe I'm, just not used to big tour rap concerts. Overall though, I was definitely impressed, and I'd be going again in Baltimore if I wasn't going away this weekend.
Venue: B/B-
Seeing a show at a club or smallish hall is always better than at an arena, but the 5,000 seat (for concerts) Patriot Center is relatively intimate for an arena. Even 2 rows from the very top, we could see and hear everything well. The $50 ticket price was steep, and $15-$20 more than for the same show at some other places, but parking was free and it wasn't a nightmare leaving the parking lot.
Crowd: D-
It was an impressively diverse crowd. We saw everything from kids accompanied by parents to Volvo station wagon-driving couples to I'd say a pretty even mix of black and white. Most people were really into the whole scene, dancing and singing along and throwing their diamonds in the sky. However, there was also a noticeable contingent of George Mason students (or possibly younger kids) who either spent the concert doing drugs or were absolutely falling-down wasted. Luckily, 4 of them sat in our row. And after stumbling over our legs to get to their seats, spent the first 1/2 of the concert knocking into me and falling into the row in front of them. They were apologetic enough and not bothering the section too much so we let bygones be bygones. Until the one heavyset friend fell into the row in front of him and couldn't get up. And while the people he was crushing were yelling at him, the other friend who'd been sitting near comatose as his friends gyrated around him without a care starting throwing up on himself. And then projectile vomiting before the poor people in the 3-row radius he hit even had a chance to collect their belongings and scram. The kids had enough wits about them to get the kid out of there (without his shoe) at that point, but then they came back to watch the show! First one guy wandered up alone and tried to argue with the people in the section (who were about 90 seconds from turning into an angry vigilante mob) that he didn't throw up and didn't know why anyone was mad at him. He left, but a little while later the 2 ditzes he was with came back and went back to their vomited-on seats. So I grabbed them and said "Your seats are covered in vomit and everyone here wants to beat you up. Maybe you should find other seats." And they were completely oblivious and said something like "Yeah, our friends are really drunk. Sorry!" then stood in the vomit complaining "Ew it reeks over here!" I can't front like I've never been drunk at a concert, and I've had friends who've vomited at inconvenient times. But if I ever find out that I've raised children that act that braindead, inconsiderate, and worthless at life, god help them.
Show: A
Kanye put on an amazing show. Everything I'd hoped for (except for a surprise appearance by Jay-Z--we were sure it was coming when he started playing "Encore"). The set was cool, the sound was good, there was tons of energy, and he played for at least 1 ½ or 2 hours. He went through every song on Late Registration and most of College Dropout (except School Spirit and Never Let You Down--understandable since they're collabos) and even did some Jay-Z and Twista. The between-song gimicky things were fun, and he played parts of the original version of a lot of the songs he sampled, which I thought was cool. He seemed to be having a good time and wanted the audience to be into it, leading to memorable lines like (before "Roses") "Make some noise if you love your grandmother!" and of course everyone's favorite line, "White people, you better sing along, this is the only time you allowed to say [the N word]". Even Fantasia's opening performance was impressive. She sounded as good in person as on American Idol, and Baby Mama was a big crowd pleaser, naturally.
My only minor complaint was that the show seemed pretty scripted. The songs sounded just like they did on the cds and there wasn't a lot of ad libbing overall, but I suppose that's how most big-tour shows are. Also, by the "Diamonds are Forever" finale, I wondered if there wasn't some lip synching going on...He did a lot of "letting the audience sing" in the previous song, and Diamonds just sounded a little more perfect than the rest. And I was disappointed there was no encore, but again, maybe I'm, just not used to big tour rap concerts. Overall though, I was definitely impressed, and I'd be going again in Baltimore if I wasn't going away this weekend.
posted by Alexis @ 4:04 PM
1 Comments:
At 1:25 PM,
TacoAddict said…
I don't know why I only read this now, but the Usher concert at MCI was horrible...if you want to hear lip-synching, go to an Usher concert. The only good thing about it was that Kanye opened, and he was awesome. In terms of rappish concerts I've been to, I'd say he was almost as good as Black Eyed Peas at 9:30, but they had the intimate setting to play off of.
Post a Comment
<< Home