Kanye West in Hong Kong? Well I haven’t been here long but I think a hip hop artist of such magnitude performing live in Honkers is a rare experience. Even weirder was the venue – an open air drive in cinema on the Kowloon side. Hip Hop started in the parks so it’s not an unprecedented event to have a concert like this outside but it’s unusual for sure. The crowd was an odd blend of hand holding couples, Hong Kong local kids and bemused ex-pats. Not exactly your typical audience but seeing as my last hip hop gig was Cypress Hill circa their first LP at the Brixton Academy I can’t really compare a normal audience in the year 2006. This may be typical these days.
Warming up was some desperate local MC with skills so bad that it was embarrassing. He wailed for 30 minutes and then thankfully left the stage. We waited for Mr. West to arrive as The Low End theory was being played over the PA and the stage was being set. First on walked the Orchestra and then his DJ, A-Track, and then some singers. At last beautiful opening strings played some classical shizzle before transforming into the opening bars of Diamonds Are Forever and our hero appeared on stage as the break kicked in. He ran through his whole collection from the first two LP’s but you could tell it was hard crowd to move. Due to the autumnal nip in the air and lack of any real atmosphere it was like watching rather than partaking and I’m not sure if anyone knew much of his music save for Gold Digger or Touch The Sky. I listened to College Dropout almost constantly on it’s release and track like Spaceship and I’ll Fly Away won’t get the crowd letting off they cannons into the air but on a musical level they were great to hear live even if it wasn’t exactly danceable.
The concert was pretty much a glorified and extended PA and tracks were run through at breakneck speed with only a few twists and turns, New Workout Plan transformed into Sweet Dreams by the Eurythmics and the use of the orchestra to recreate the Verves Unfinished Sympathy were the only musical twists this evening. Yonks ago as part of a Def Poetry show Mos Def introduced Kanye as “the future of hip hop” and I agree. Hip Hop live in the year 2006 has the same production values as rock gig and only a few can pull this with Kanye being one of them. Fair play to him for making an effort, he didn’t have to use an orchestra, and its love of the music, not the lifestyle, that is his saviour. After 50 minutes and quick “goodnight” he was gone. Some were moaning but fuck them, didn’t they realise they were in the presence of greatness?
I think its incredibly rrogant of you to suggest that you were the only person who had heard such songs as spaceship and the only ones anybody knew well were Touch The Sky and Gold Digger. I loved the whole concertand sang every word to every song as did all te fans around me at the front. Granted the atmosphere was lacking solely because of it being hed in an open air arena but the quality of music and fans was excellent. Great to see Kanye in Hong Kong!
I call it as I see and there was no atmosphere whether or not you knew the songs. The quality was excellent yes but the fans? Come on dude, they was wack and you knows that.