Kanye boo’ed at Bonaroo Festival

Source : AP ,Stereogum

Kanye who has been coasting around the country on his sold-out Glow in the Dark Tour, has hit a few snags the last couple weeks. First he “took it on the chin” at Hot 97’s Summer Jam for a self described weak performance and now at this festival oddly called Bonaroo.

Kanye maybe those silly props you got in your show should have maybe scaled down dramatically due to the fact that this was not your personal tour but an appearance in an artist heavy festival.

You wanted that crowd Kanye now deal with it.

Kanye West’s late night performance at Bonnaroo was delayed nearly two hours, angering the festival crowd who responded by chanting “Kanye sucks” and pelting the empty stage with glow sticks.

West had been scheduled to take the main stage at the Bonnaroo Music & Arts Festival at 2:45 a.m. Sunday morning. While the sleepy thousands in the audience waited, a message on the jumbotrons told them West’s show would be delayed until 3:15 a.m., and when that didn’t happen, that he would start at 3:30. West didn’t hit the stage until 4:25 a.m.

The delay was caused by problems setting up West’s elaborate stage set, which included an interplanetary landscape of a wavy black platform with a slanted floor in the middle and a video screen above. West performed a spectacular galactic-themed concert complete with interaction with his spaceship, a disembodied female voice named Jane (a kind of sexier HAL).

Ken Weinstein, a spokesman for the annual festival held on a 700-acre site south of Nashville, said the delay was simply a matter of unloading the Pearl Jam stage (the band went an hour past its scheduled end time, playing until about 1:15 a.m.) and loading the West stage.

The festival, which boasted more than 150 acts spread out over four days, was otherwise very punctual. The West delay was all the worse because of its already very late schedule, and many campers lost energy before the concert and returned to their sleeping bags. Midway through his performance, the morning light showed that the crowd had dwindled substantially.

West had originally been slated to perform at 8:15 p.m. Saturday night, but requested a late night performance. At least in the first hour of his performance, West didn’t address the crowd regarding the delay.

Later Sunday, the Bonnaroo crowd was still upset. Pedal steel guitarist Robert Randolph led a “Kanye sucks” chant.

Check out the wordy Stereogum review below:

A month ago the NYTimes’s Jon Pareles reviewed Kanye’s Glow In The Dark tour stop at MSG saying “There is a new yardstick for the size of the universe. It is approximately equal to the size of Kanye West’s ego.” Yeah Kanye’s ego’s big — making thousands of kids wait two hours later than an already incredibly scheduled 2:45AM start time is simply the latest lesson in Umm Duh — but no Jon Pareles, it is not the size of the universe. It isn’t even the size of the sun. You know what’s the size of the sun, guys? The fucking sun. And Kanye, the sun won’t wait to rise so you can make sure the section of the stage where you do your sneaker-slide move is properly waxed. And when it rises, stuff no longer glows. And, it is no longer dark. I think I just successfully interviewed to be your new tour manager. You need one. Hire me.

OK, I feel better now. Thing is, I respect Kanye for trying to do something different with this tour. I get that he’s a perfectionist, and was probably making sure the stage was perfectly constructed or something (that’s the benefit of the doubt I gave him while I watched people collapse in drug seizures trying to stay up — seriously). Maybe the mainstage was backed up ’cause Pearl Jam went a little late, they tend to do that. And all the cool visuals on the background screens, the inventive stage shape and use, the up-spits of flame, the song rearrangements, etc. all probably transform, and kill in, an enclosed space. Instead the only thing that died was the concept, and in broad daylight (although “Good Morning” had a cool if unintended effect as the set opener at 4:40). A straight set of jams would have gone down a whole lot better (ala Lolla).

That’s not to say Ye didn’t try — he was totally invested in each dance move, every lyric, and all the sorta cringy interactions with Jane The Spaceship. Just like seeing a band pour their heart out in the rain well past bedtime, of course I had a touch of that special recognition and who-gives-a-fuck-this-is-will-never-happen-again vibe that comes along with the memory in the making. That’s why I just wish he could have deviated from the script, even for like 20 seconds, just at the end, to acknowledge the moment: “Thanks for staying up with me and watching the sunrise” would have been nice. We didn’t even get a proper wave goodbye. I mean come on Kanye, I know not every word you speak up there is necessarily scripted.

Anyway Ye has a strict no photo policy, so I definitely did not take this with my iPhone at 5:25AM:

~ by streetknowledge on June 16, 2008.