EW.com reviews “Glow in the Dark”…

Kanye West’s ‘Glow in the Dark’ tour opens in Seattle

Kanye West has tried to keep the design and theme of his new tour shrouded in secrecy, but the cat’s out of the bag now that the nationwide trek opened at Seattle’s KeyArena on Wednesday night. EW.com was on hand for the premiere of the “Glow in the Dark” tour — which also features Rihanna, N.E.R.D., and Lupe Fiasco as opening acts — and can offer a preview of what audiences across the country have in store over the next few months.

It’s as “big” a production as you might have expected from all the anticipation West has been building up, but maybe the biggest conceit is how minimalist it really is, in that West spends his entire 83-minute performance alone on stage. Indulging in metaphorical dialogues with a computerized voice and rapping and dancing in front of a giant LED screen full of star fields and spacey desert landscapes, West is attempting to pull off the hip-hop equivalent of a Broadway one-man show.

More details and — WARNING — spoilers, after the jump.

As stated earlier, no other humans share the stage with West. You might even think he’s rapping to tracks, though you’ll eventually notice that there is a live pit band, a la Broadway, playing in the dark below the lip of the stage. At the beginning of his 83-minute set, West explained that he was lost in space, marooned while on a mission to search for creativity in the universe. “My only companion is my spaceship, Jane, and this is our last mission,” he said. Yes, his off-screen computerized foil has a name: Jane. “Our system has encountered a meteor shower,” Jane soon tells him. The damage is severe and West collapses. “Wake up, Mr. West!… We have crash landed on an unknown planet.” Soon, his spaceship is prompting him for some personal flashbacks: “Mr. West, remember, this is not your first crash.” West does most of his performing on a platform slanted at about a 30-degree angle in front of the giant screen, and the only real prop of the evening is an inanimate female alien that drops in on some wires at one point, looking like a sex doll with a blue anime wig.

Late in the show, “Jesus Walks” is followed by his ode to his late mother, wherein, scripted or real, West drops to one knee and appears genuinely caught up in raw emotion. Then the pit band plays an excerpt from Journey’s “Don’t Stop Believin’” before Jane admonishes West: “We’ve been on this journey so long — we can’t give up now…. We need the brightest star in the universe: You, Kanye. We need you. Only you can bring us home. You can glow in the dark.” At that point, he launches into a rousing version of “Stronger,” the equivalent of what they call “an 11 o’clock number” on Broadway. (It was literally well after 11 p.m., though, since West didn’t take the stage until 10:20.) After one last number, in one of his very few direct addresses to the crowd (as opposed to Jane), West exulted, “You have just experienced the “Glow in the Dark” tour! Don’t act like I never told ya!”There were no encores, which may or may not have had anything to do with the fact that he was already wrapping up 43 minutes past the venue’s curfew, ensuring some hefty local overtime penalties.

General consensus: West is taking himself awfully seriously with this show, and the hubris borders on the ludicrous — and yet the whole thing manages to be fairly galvanizing anyway, thanks to his being fully committed at every step of the way. (Reviews of this first show in the Los Angeles Times and Seattle Times were fairly rapturous.) The audience also adored all three opening acts, each of whom got a half-hour in front of a white curtain.

The oddest moment may have been when Pharrell from N.E.R.D. came out on stage during a lengthy set change, about 15 minutes after they’d finished performing, and issued a public apology for having cursed on stage, since it had been brought to his attention that there was a 5-year-old in the front row. (A few minutes earlier, the crowd had cheered as he’d come out from backstage walked down to the front row, presumably to have a discussion with the offended parent.) It’ll be interesting to see whether future shows will have Pharrell reviving the encouragement to women to chant “I want to f— tonight,” and whether that’ll depend on how many grade-schoolers the N.E.R.D. frontman spies in section A.

For a review of the tour, check out the next issue of EW, out May 2

Source: EW.com

3 Responses to “EW.com reviews “Glow in the Dark”…”

1. elena laskoska says:

   April 19, 2008 at 2:49 AM

   rihanna and kanye west are really good friends
2. Steve says:

   April 19, 2008 at 11:49 PM

   I thought that the show was amazing here in Sac, even if he did say Seattle on accident at one point. Check out my review to see my full analysis…
   http://mysocialstandards.blogspot.com/
3. Jennifer says:

   April 22, 2008 at 5:21 PM

   1 question. Why is there a 5 year old @ this type of concert? Or any type of concert, period? 5 YEARS OLD?
   NO! They should be @ home! That’s a baby! N as loud as it be @ concerts, a 5 year old shouldn’t be in tha audience! It’s all GROWN FOLKS performing on this tour! I’m not saying it should only be GROWN folks in tha audience, but. . . a 5 year old shouldn’t be @ a concert like this one 2 begin w/. Kiddy concerts, ok. But GROWN FOLKS concerts, NO!