Wednesday, November 19, 2008

Kanye West, NEC Birmingham 15/11/08

The best way I thought of celebrating fnishing some tough projects was to visit a friend in Birmingham and smack up the Kanye West gig. Kanye West is an artist I admire for his willingness to utilise various genres in creating his own style of tunes. At times I find some of his material hit and miss (mainly due to some of those tunes with the annoying vocal distortions reminiscent of a Scooter song-his song "Through the Wire" springs to mind. Ultimately the man has serious talent and confidence and I knew it was going to be a belter of a show.

The NEC arena in Birmigham is a fine arena and altough we were seated in the furthest corner of the arena away from the stage the sound wasnt totally lacking as I presumed it would. I was delighted to hear Santogold was the support act but her performance was timid enough. The crowd seemed impatient with her to be honest.

Kanyes stage setup was bloody impressive. Elevated slopes covered the stage to mimic an alien planet with the flat mid-section mobile throughout the performance moving forwards, upwards an so on. The live band were situated in the front of the stage. Each member or section of the band were elevated for each performance depending on their input to each song.

Kanye spoke to a "Knight Rider" type character on the giant screen intermittently between songs which I thought was a good idea but was executed poorly. It came across a tad cheesy.

Mr. West is a known performer-the man can belt them out. A lot of songs were given fresh adjustments and others were pushed into a higher gear. "Jesus Walks", "Diamonds are Forever" and "Flashing Lights" were real standouts. The whole crowd throw hands forward in unison which saw something to behold from where we were standing.

The man leaves an impression. The mans got talent. If you can check him out.


2 comments:

Phantana said...

you know if you mention Kanye opinion is always divided and it always starts a debate...firstly the vocoder wasnt used on Through the wire. the muffled sound you here on the record is Kanye rapping after his car crash with his jaw wired shut. The vocoder effect is used primarily on the new album, 808s and Heartbrakes.

The stage show was devised for his Glow in the Dark tour with N.E.R.D, Lupe Fiasco and Rihanna in the States. the version we're getting in Europe is the final installment of it...

bubblewrap said...

Thats some good smacking of info out of you!

I was referring to the voice distortions on the chorus of "Through the Wire" delivered by some female vocalist which i find quite frustrating to listen to

The vocoder effect he uses on Love Lockdown is utilised quite well I think....a subtle tweaking goes a long way