thank you and you're welcome

Thoughts on KanYe's Glow In The Dark Tour, which Dayna and I witnessed last Thursday night in Mansfield, MA to a capacity crowd of approximately 19,900 (note: I can admit when I make horrible estimates):

We got there at 8pm (EIGHT!) and missed two of the four acts (Lupe and N.E.R.D.).

Rihanna suuucks.

We have a hunch that one stipulation for coming on the GITDT was you had to let Yeezy choose at least one of your outfits. Because Rihanna looked like the red Power Ranger for a few songs.

By the looks of the one-long-sleeve-one-short-sleeve-hoodie-with-a-completely-useless-bulletproof-shoulder-padish -thing-over-a-t-shirt-tied-90s-style-around-the-waist ensemble Yeezy was sporting, he's been watching a few too many Mad Max movies lately.

No one but Mr. West set foot on the smoke-covered surface of undulating Moonscape craters during his entire set. Even his band, which he introduced during the encore, was somewhere backstage and only shown on the video screen.

The Mansfield, Mass crowd would've made you laugh if you weren't already crying and throwing up a little bit.

Things we already knew about Ye: he's a pretty big nerd; he's by no means adept at the craft of acting; he has a big ego. Despite all this, the space-travel story line which runs through the duration of the show was palatable and at times funny and endearing. Between songs KanYe exchanges lines of clicheed Star Wars-esque dialogue with his almost-human spaceship computer system "Jane," which are often laughable in their stiltedness. She provides him with video of two gilded vixens to help him fight his loneliness after crash-landing on a deserted planet, a plot twist which coincides with his performance of "Gold Digger." And, once Jane reminds Yeezy that he can single-handedly power himself back home because he "is the brightest star in the universe," the first few bars of "Homecoming" begin.

Music-wise, it was everything you would expect from His Brightness. For well over an hour the man ran, danced, and bounced his way around the stage with a seemingly infinite energy supply, something which isn't easy to find these days buh dum chsh. Even with the acoustics being what they are at a venue like the Tweeter Center, Ye and the 7-piece band created an impressively full and pleasing sound, and relied only minimally on canned samples. Highlights were "Flashing Lights," "Gold Digger," and "The Good Life," during which KanYe forgot to replace every city name in the song with the tour's current city, singing, and I'm not making this up, "It feel' like Philly--Boston...(chuckles)..."

The Times summed it up pretty well with their headline: "Kanye West's Ego-Fueled Hip-Hop Sci-Fi Space Odyssey."

An amazing number of copies of KanYe's book of "advice," Thank You and You're Welcome, were given out on the way out of the show. It is a fun keepsake to own but not worth the $10 he's selling it for on his website.

Anyone else see the show?