It Was Cool, but There Was No Glowing

From what I could observe on Tuesday night, it's difficult being a high-school girl these days. First, you have to be thin. Otherwise, you can't fit into the tight pants or the shortest cootie-cutter shorts possible. And that's what you have to wear because, well, everyone else is. Second, you need to know what Dunks are, and you need to have a pair. It gets tricky because you can't have the same colorway as anyone else, and when you and all the other high-school girls wear them, you need to make sure you've paired yours with the right black leggings and tank top. Third, you can't be claustrophobic, because if you attend an event--say, a Kanye West concert at Madison Square Garden--you're gonna find yourself standing with 40 other high schoolers in a space only meant for 20 people along the railing in the upper tier. You'll all be on top of each other, linking arms, holding hands, playing with other people's hair, dancing. Fourth, you have to deal with the douchey high-school boys, some of whom will mean mug in their trendy t-shirts and designer sunglasses, others whom will wear their desire to be down on their sleeves, and still more whom will demonstratively seek out cigarettes all night, even as older people admonish him for smoking and lampoon his crusade to seem mature cool by asking if he has any weeeed, maaaaan. Oh, and fifth, you need to know all the words to "Hey Mama" (or, as my homie was saying, "Barack, Barack Obama/Barack, Barack Obama...") so that you can participate in the school-choir-like rendition that breaks out among your peers.



That's a lot for a girl to deal with. And it was a lot for me to observe as my friends and I took in Kanye at MSG this past week. Despite being one whose behavior shades toward the immature end of the spectrum for 26-year-olds, and despite using an assortment of interwebs to remain up on a specific cultural zeitgeist, I couldn't believe how thoroughly out of touch I am with the always fascinating high-school-girl demographic. I need to start going to more Fray concerts or something.

Anyway...

An abiding rule of this enthusiastic concert-goer's philosophy is that when a big-name rapper comes to town, you go and see him. Period. Unless it's a bum like Curtis. You go because he'll work hard to impress the New York crowd, he'll want to honor the amorphous hip-hop heritage that always lingers over these events, and he'll bring out great guests. It's New York; that's just how it goes. (And I will surely hate myself for having left when I find myself at the Murphy Lee concert next year in St. Louis and the crowd goes wild for Chingy.) That I love College Dropout, very much like Graduation, have made my peace with the Late Registration era, and practically discovered Kanye West made the decision to see him at MSG an even easier one. "Good Life," "Through the Wire," "School Spirit," and think of all the guests! Common! Talib! Jay! Yes!

Well, the joke was on me. There were no guests. Befitting a person who--and I write this without any kind of sneering or disappointed judgment--truly views himself as the biggest star on the planet, Kanye did 75 minutes of music by himself. At the end he and weed-carrier Lupe performed "Touch the Sky," but that felt like an economies-of-scale thing, and not a celebration of collaboration. I mean, Lupe is getting paid to be on the tour, anyway; might as well have him put in the work.

The Kanye experience was extravagant. There was this colorful, talking video screen; there were aliens; there was someone's annual salary's worth of smoke from smoke machines; there were pyrotechnics. And there, of course, was Kanye, who got a sweat going quite briskly and spent his evening running through hits, doing those awkward dances of his, and working so hard.

The truest words Kanye's ever said about himself might be, "Or use my arrogance as the steam to power my dreams." That came through on Tuesday. If you hate him, there's no shortage of material. If you love him, there's no shortage of material. But regardless, what appears beyond dispute is that this is a person who works hard, refuses to hear "no," and remains driven in a way that can only come from a certain sort of narcissism. Kanye outwardly projects the sense that he deserves his success, deserves your affection, and deserves to stand on an expansive stage by himself and stare out at 20,000 people looking on with rapt attention. As someone who lost his voice rapping along with song after song, who worked up a sweat dancing to so many favorite beats, I really wasn't mad at that. It was fun. It was 75 minutes of closely orchestrated, well-rehearsed fun, during which the music, though great on its own, became a medium that connected the audience with Kanye in a personal way (). It transcended a mere performance, or the transactional nature of a concert (we pay, he performs), and was more about fans communing with a hero. That reads grandiose, and I don't mean to equate Kanye with something greater than he is, but Tuesday night was more than just music.

All that said, a fitting bit of irony was that during the final opening act, Rihanna brought out Chris Brown to perform "Umbrella." There was not a single ovation all night that was louder than the one Mr. Brown received when he quietly strode onto the stage in his understated cardigan to deliver a simple rendition of his verse. But, what else do you expect when surrounded by high-school girls?