Concert Review: Kanye West, Kendrick Lamar @ Air Canada Centre

By: Mehek Seyid (@whatthemehek) –

After a handful of delays and date changes, Kanye West finally made it to Toronto for the first of his two final performances on the Yeezus Tour on Sunday night, ending one of his most successful and equally controversial years with a well-crafted spectacle of a show.

Entering the stage amidst a procession of women dressed in white gowns, their faces covered with nude nylon material, West launched his set with a series of songs that set the atmosphere ablaze, performing “On Sight”, “New Slaves”, “Send It Up”, and “Mercy”. It’s appropriate that this segment, the first of five, was entitled “Fighting”, as West furiously recited through his rhymes. He placed extra emphasis on the heavy breaths and precise annunciations central to his sixth studio album, Yeezus, and ran around a triangular platform that worked as an extension of the main stage.

The Yeezus tour was orchestrated with the same amount of careful consideration that made the album so ingenious. Each and every creative element was manipulated to reflect the overarching theme of the individual segments. While movements, lighting, and even at times, the show’s pacing, were not consistent, they were calculated and as a result, captivating. Sometimes, it just involved West on his own, like when he performed “Power” at the top of the stone mountain set upon the main stage or washed in a single spotlight during “Black Skinhead”. On other occasions, it called for the use of interpretative dancers who lifted him up during “I Am A God” and an eerie wolf-monster with blaring red eyes that creeped along the edges of the mountain while West flowed through the “Falling” segment of his show, which featured songs like “Hold My Liquor” and “I’m In It”.

Unfortunately, this thematic era slowed down the pace of the evening, as the audience became noticeably quieter as the rapper artistically delved into some of the darker points of his career. It’s entirely possible that the die-hards and those who truly appreciated West’s creative foray on Yeezus were simply absorbing the moment, but judging by some the comments being yelled, many became quite frustrated with the lack of action. The atmosphere was temporarily revived when West broke out “Heartless” from 808s & Heartbreak and “Blood on the Leaves”, a standout on the album met with an equally stunning display of pyrotechnics that blasted into the Air Canada Centre as West painfully yelled “You could’ve been somebody!”

But if there is anything that the last segment, “Finding”, indicated, it’s that West definitely is somebody. He’s the kind of guy who can he spend a few minutes teasing the audience by playing singular notes from the introduction of “Runaway”, and eventually pull-off a memorable stadium-wide toast to, of all people, the douchebags. When he later declared “I need to apologize for absolutely nothing!” and told a fan to shut up during his infamous twenty-minute rant, he was greeted with cheers and laughs. When he ran through a closing set that highlighted some of his biggest hits, including “Stronger”, “Through the Wire”, a bright and firey rendition of “All of the Lights” and “Jesus Walks”, the last of which featured a Jesus impersonator gracing the stage, people celebrated his career.  With such a range of attitudes, personas and emotions, you definitely have to be somebody to be appreciated. Looking at the devoted looks of the audience members as they serenaded West with the chorus of “Bound 2” before he left the stage, he definitely seems to be considered one of a kind, in the best of ways.

Breakout rapper Kendrick Lamar opened the Yeezus tour with a forty-five minute set. Unfortunately for the Compton, California-native, many attendees missed a bulk of his set due to the aftermath of the ongoing ice storm, but the emptiness did not impact the ferocity and intensity of Lamar’s performance. In some ways it was disappointing that hissetlist only consisted of tracks from his critically acclaimed debut album, good kid, m.A.A.d. city, but it was nice to see how well those songs played out in a stadium setting, with visuals highlighting streets in Compton and a full-band, creating visions of him headlining his own stadium tour in the near future. Performances of “Backseat Freestyle”, “Swimming Pools (Drank)”, and “Bitch Don’t Kill My Vibe” were the obvious standouts, but watching him perform “Sing About Me”, shrouded in darkness, sounded like poetry reverberating around the Air Canada Centre and brought the kind of intimacy similar to the shows he used to perform at club-like venues. While Lamar’s on-stage persona is less dramatic than West’s, he was the perfect opener because of his equal passion and talent for artistry and lyricism.

Kanye West Set-List

(Fighting)
1. On Sight
2. New Slaves
3. Send It Up
4. Mercy

(Rising)
5. Power
6. Cold
7. I Don’t Like (Chief Keef cover)
8. Clique
9. Black Skinhead
10. I Am a God
11. Can’t Tell Me Nothing
12. Coldest Winter

(Falling)
13. Hold My Liquor
14. I’m In It
15. Guilt Trip
16. Heartless
17. Blood on the Leaves

(Searching)
18. Lost in the World
19. Runaway
20. Stronger
21. Through the Wire

(Finding)
22. Jesus Walks
23. Diamonds from Sierra Leone
24. Flashing Lights
25. All of the Lights
26. Good Life
27. Bound 2