Kanye

Mr. West! Mr. West! Mr. West!

The Apollo with the oh-so-cool "Kanye West" headed entrance

Kanye West at the Hammersmith Apollo... To be honest with you I wasn't expecting to be at the concert as I didn't know he was even having one; my little brother had so generously acquired me a ticket to go with him. Well, it was actually because he had refreshed a page on his browser when ordering and received a second ticket that he couldn't sell on. Oh well, better for me really.

Cold as Ice

Two hours after the doors opened, West came on dressed in a straight jacket onto a square white stage and against a white backdrop. All white. And onto these white surfaces was projected moving images of Arctic ice-movements and ocean-panning. It was all very "cool" (punny...). He bounced around the stage to "Cold as Ice" to begin with and the crowd was really feeling it.

"Kanyeti" feathered mask

He donned a mask twice throughout his performance. The first being a feathered white "Yeti" or "Kanyeti" Mask, and the second a diamond-encrusted "Maison Martin Margiela" creation. It was quite strange to see and even nerve-racking at points where he didn't seem to know where he was stepping. It was however very different to anything I've ever seen.

Diamond encrusted "Maison Martin Margiela" mask

Energising the crowd

As you may have been able to deduce, I was in the seated portion of the Apollo, but this doesn't mean I was doing much sitting. In fact, the majority of the time that West was on stage, the whole crowd was up, out of their chairs, singing along, gesturing with hand movements and head swaying (it wasn't just me, honest). My brother was one of the dots in the front row. I can't complain too much about being up in the heavens though (which was quite fitting during Jesus walks) as I had a good view of all the projections, his musicians and DJ and could also feed off the energy of the crowd.

Flashing Lights

I would like to say that people got their moneys worth at about £70 a ticket. He was on for a couple of hours and did a mixture of songs, most of which I knew which was a plus point. There were a few dud moments like when he played an electronic synthesizing-type instrument quite sporadically, and his ten-minute moany-whiny "singing" where a song would end only for him to continue stretching out his "oohs" and "aahs" with seemingly no sense coming from them. I don't know, maybe the die-hard fans got it.

Thank you Mr. West

All in all though, I'd say it was well worth trekking to Hammersmith to see Kanye West, especially since it was free. I really enjoyed the show he put on, even with the confusing masks and one-man-band portions of the show. I'd recommend if he's in town again that you go see him!

:-)

Elky

Some of the Songs that he performed on the night were "Cold as Ice", "Mercy", "Power", "Jesus Walks", "Heartless", "Homecoming", "Flashing Lights", "All of the Lights", "Good Life", "All Falls Down", "Stronger", "Run This Town", "Runaway", "Touch the Sky".