She knew about these wooden boys, it's an empty love to fill the void.

Kanye West/Nas
Acer Arena
Sydney
December 6, 2008

(Picture swiped from FasterLouder)


I'm a reasonable man, get off my case

I wonder how Nas felt about opening for Kanye West on Saturday night. He’s been in the game close to twenty years, remains popular, and yet still had to warm-up the crowd for a star who released his debut album ten years after Nas cleaved hip-hop into pre- and posr-Illmatic periods. On a certain level, it is impressive that Nas could command such a high profile spot on an arena show for an audience on the other side of the world this far into his career, since few of his early ’90s contemporaries retain the relevance he does, but I can’t imagine a line-up like this appearing in many other genres. As big as Coldplay is, they’re not going to have R.E.M. playing support any time soon.

But Nas’ position on the bill was both a testament to his durability and representative of his inability to transcend hip-hop and become a genuine pop star, like Jay-Z, or Kanye himself. That is not necessarily a bad thing, but it is not as if Nas had not been trying for that position for a good portion of his career. He seems comfortable in his role as hip-hop elder statesman, but it is nonetheless a consolation prize for a superstardom he was never able to properly attain.

Bounding across the stage at Sydney’s Acer Arena on Saturday, Nas looked — and sounded —smaller than his settings. He was wearing a crisp, close-fitting white tee, chain and sunglasses and still managed to look over-dressed, and his attempts to create the kinds of grand narrative moments that fill cavernous concert halls misfired. He did “Black President,” and it sounded great, but it never really became inspiring, even when he followed it with the chorus from his collaboration with Young Jeezy, “My President.” Australia is wildly pro-Barack Obama, but Nas enthusing about the President-elect elicited a comparatively muted response from the audience. When he went on to criticize the mayor and the governor and other politicians, it was odd; did he mean specifically David Paterson and Michael Bloomberg, and if so, how were Sydney-siders meant to react to criticisms of politicians they barely knew and who affected them even less? Of course, Nas was trying to tell us he felt different about Obama to other politicians, but somehow he managed to find a way to make the election of a man the entire world is excited about seem like a distant, distinctly American event.

(Picture swiped from FasterLouder)


Oh I think they like... he.

Nas’ music isn’t really arena music. His inability to transcend hip-hop means his music remains an indelible part of hip-hop's fabric, something the genre doesn't have to share with wider society; the best moments from Nas' career tend to be the ones that reflect his and his music’s birth-place. The teeming metropolis of New York is a city of small spaces, and its hip-hop reflects that. It is built to be heard in subway cars and cramped apartments, through headphones or boom boxes. That Nas’ music is constructed from little more than samples and his intricate rhymes meant that his decision to perform with a full band accentuated his awkward fit with the venue.

Still, he has a deep catalogue, and with less than an hour to perform, his set was stuffed with highlights. Songs like “Hate Me Now” helped; even if Nas is not arena-sized, “Carmina Burana” is. And the pairing of “Got Ur Self a…” and “Made You Look” toward the end of the set saw him getting into a groove that compensated for his fruitless attempt to turn a lyric like “My first album had no famous guest appearances/the outcome: I’m crowned the best lyricist” into a sing-along moment. (He also added a snatch of “Shoot ‘Em Up” between these two songs, using it as an opportunity to endorse gun control, which was weird, to say the least.) The set culminated with a fantastic “One Mic”; the song’s slow build and towering intensity were suited for the setting in a way much of the rest of his material is not. “All I need is one mic,” Nas raps during the song: six words that define his entire career. Nas has an uncertain relationship with big ideas and grand concepts, but he’s never had a problem with words. The best moment of his set came when he introduced one of the earliest songs he recorded: “Live at the BBQ.” A beat, some rhymes and one mic: that’s all he ever really needed.

(Picture swiped from the Sydney Morning Herald)


Let's get lost tonight.

Unlike Nas, Kanye West does make arena-sized music. Last time I saw him, at the Hordern Pavillion in 2006, he was trying to prove himself as a rap star. He constantly urged us to throw our diamonds up, tying himself to the hip-hop legacy of the Roc-a-Fella record label, and though he brought a string quartet with him, his intention seemed to be to distinguish as a rapper of note. Two and a half years later, he played a venue about ten times bigger, and he didn’t even need to try to prove it: Kanye West is bigger than hip-hop.

His music is made for arenas now, and it sounded incredible, from the opening chords of “Welcome to Heartbreak” on. His past two albums in particular are designed for larger venues; the music is expansive, the emotions are palpable but broad and the lyrics are simple and direct. The synth sounds Kanye has been working with are stark and monolithic, complementing the gigantic banks of LED lights that surrounded his stage. “My friend showed me pictures of his kids/And all I could show him was pictures of my cribs” are lines so simple and direct that a ten year old could sing along to them. At this show, many ten year olds were singing along to them.

Songs from West’s new album, 808s and Heartbreak, bookended the show, but their influence soaked through his entire set. The title of the album is misleading: it is a record about alienation, not a break-up album (I don’t think its sound is particularly characterized by 808s either). The album revolves around the death of Kanye's mother and his separation from his fiancée Alexis Phifer, but the central theme is that without these people he has lost all elements of normalcy in his life. That’s why I don’t have a problem with the simplistic way he expresses his sentiments; he’s trying to portray his inability to operate in everyday society rather than detail a relationship falling apart. 808s is more like Kid A than Ryan Adams’ Heartbreaker, and as with the Radiohead album, he expresses his alienation with aesthetic choices rather than complex lyrics: distancing vocal affects; flat, all-encompassing blocks of sound; and cold, artificial instrumentation.

Even though the majority of the show’s running time consisted of older material, West redesigned his earlier work so it was consistent with the 808s aesthetic. The soothing guitar loop on “Hear ‘Em Say” was replaced with a skeletal, reverberating drum beat, and the deep groove of “Get ‘Em High” was refashioned into a strange and menacing pulse. Already grim songs like “Can’t Tell Me Nothing” became even bleaker and more detached. When West did return to his trademark soul, as on “Champion” or “Through the Wire,” the results were regal and imposing. They sounded more like the product of Just Blaze’s high-energy bombast than Kanye’s warmth.

This made for an astounding performance. West performed with charged intensity, and his new arrangements were thrilling and kinetic. He barely said a word to the audience all night, but nevertheless held us engrossed throughout his set. He was supported by a band (complete with Daft Punk-reminiscent face guards), including up to four percussionists, who adeptly recreated the massive tribal drumming on the album, but this show belonged to Kanye West. The rapper dominated the proceedings, intent on shaping the experience of every single second for every single person in the room. The result was astonishing.

It was immense fun too; the darker overtones West gave the music didn’t stop us from having a great time. But Kanye himself didn’t seem to enjoy a minute of it. He was impassioned and earnest, and at times angry, as in a lengthy freestyle during his performance of “Put On,” in which he scathingly attacked critics who disapproved of his new direction, and castigated the media’s coverage of Britney Spears. He didn’t even seem to enjoy his genuinely celebratory songs; In “American Boy” and “Good Life,” he seemed to be mourning a carefree past he could no longer access.

(Picture swiped from FasterLouder)


Flashing. Lights.

When in the second encore he returned to new material, things got distinctly weird. In “Amazing,” he didn’t sound amazed, he sounded disconnected, rapping the same phrases over and over. No longer the poppy second single, “Heartless” was brutal and mean-spirited (he cursed out Phifer as a “bitch,” the word carrying more weight in this instance than on a thousand other casually misogynistic rap songs) and by the end he was veritably screaming “Why’d she have to be so heartless?” And when he finally finished the show, with “Love Lockdown,” things went wrong.

The booming bass kicks swelled through the arena, and Kanye, autotuned-up, sung through until the tribal drums kicked in, at which point he decided he wanted to start again. The drums continued for a while but eventually died out until only the bass thump could be heard, and West began over. At the same point as before though, West cut his performance off.

He eventually restarted Love Lockdown three times, explaining that he was having wardrobe difficulties: they took the fucking outfit I wanted all the way back to my dressing room, he seethed. Eventually, he did perform “Love Lockdown” in its entirety, though I couldn’t tell if he ever got the clothes he wanted. It was a fantastic performance, as incredible as the rest of the night had been, but then again, the first few times he started the song sounded great too. As “Love Lockdown” finished, West bade us good night and strode off into the darkness alone beneath the gigantic video screen above the stage. The band continued playing those massive rattling drums, and an arena-filled with people cheered them on, a thrilling finish to an incredible night. But the star of the show was nowhere to be seen. I’m sorry, Mr. West is gone.

Setlist: Welcome to Heartbreak/Paranoid/Through the Wire/Champion/I Wonder/Heard ‘Em Say/Get ‘Em High/Can’t Tell Me Nothing/Put On/Put On (Freestyle)/Diamonds from Sierra Leone/Flashing Lights/Homecoming/All Falls Down/Touch the Sky/Gold Digger/Good Life

Encore 1: Jesus Walks/Stronger

Encore 2: American Boy/Amazing/Heartless/Pinocchio’s Story/Love Lockdown