Kanye West

[The Nal]

It was a trainwreck. Thousands upon thousands upon thousands of people leaving a headliner after 30 minutes is a trainwreck.

I was mortified for him.

[pedmills]

I've seen plenty of headline acts restart a song... maybe not as many as Kanye, but it didn't destroy my enjoyment of the show.

 

Which acts? At Glastonbury? I cannot remember ever seeing a headliner at Glastonbury restart a song.

 

The very least I expect of a Pyramid headliner is a slick, well-rehearsed, professional performance. There were cock-ups throughout Kanye's set. You could tell him and his team had not prepared properly. When he stopped Touch The Sky you could hear him say something along the lines of "That’s not what we rehearsed in the dressing room". In the dressing room - not weeks in advance, but backstage just before he started. No wonder it all went to shit.

 

Also: why were the lights one colour the whole way through? Did it not occur to him that that might be boring to watch?

[fatyeti24]

i really wanted it to succeed.  

 

**lazy comparison alert**

 

where jay z had charisma, and charm and a little knowledge of where he was to go with his arrogance, Kanye didn't.

 

i wasn't too far back - you didn't need to be to have plenty of dancing space - the light show, particularly for the first third when the rig was low, was wasted.  given the slope of the hill and the flags, all i could see was the dark to 60% of the stage 'real estate'.  the effect looked good on the screens, but, y'know...

 

the stop/start felt like a lack of rehersal, though i'll assume he was put off by Lee Nelson for Black Skinhead.  still messed it up 2nd time though.

 

when Watch the Sky started and promptly stopped again i started to leave.  ironically, the sheer naffness of being in a cherry picker - a fucking cherry picker!!! ha! - made me stay and watch the end.  but even then, with his biggest tunes, it still seemed half arsed.

 

--

 

so what did i expect?  with hindsight i got what i expected i suppose.  some good moments, extended periods of bland autotuned dullness, a hell of alot of ego.

 

what i had hoped for - and i accept, as not a huge fanboy, that this was perhaps a bit naive - was that maybe he'd rise up to a huge gig, on a huge stage in front of a huge audience (in the field and at home).  instead what we got was a slghtly more elaborate version of his recent 'white light/dry ice' sets.

 

three of us went to see it.  one loved it, two not so much.

[Rose-Colored Boy]

I loved it.

[thewayiam]

We'll I absolutely loved it! The couple of overlong pauses where I admit pretty mood breaking, and I wish he'd just finish a song, but overall, all bangers, great performance, nailed it imo

Not to be funny but how can someone who doesn't play a full song be entertaining. If it was just a little medley okay but it's not. I didn't see him I'll agree, think it was clear out of most I wouldn't but there's nothing getting away from the facts there.

[dccool]

Thank god i gave this a swerve and saw the excellent PSB instead.

Some mates who are fans gave up after 40 mins to join us at the glade.

Says it all really when fans that love the albums of an artist leave a live set early because its so dull and riddled with cock ups.

[Cockney_Jesus]

I wish I could have that hour and a half back of watching that overrated, egotistical bellend thinking he's the greatest rockstar on the planet playing a bland, uninteresting set but enough about Arctic Monkeys in 2013...

 

I thought Kanye was amazing myself, just behind Pharrell for my favourite set of the weekend. It would've been cool to have a band/special guests etc. but I really enjoyed it just as a proper, stripped down rap show.

Edited June 29, 2015 by Cockney_Jesus

[stuartbert two hats]

Not to be funny but how can someone who doesn't play a full song be entertaining. If it was just a little medley okay but it's not. I didn't see him I'll agree, think it was clear out of most I wouldn't but there's nothing getting away from the facts there.

Burt Bacharach seemed to get a pass for his continual medlying. (yes, I just invented the word 'medlying') 

[fatyeti24]

Burt Bacharach seemed to get a pass for his continual medlying. (yes, I just invented the word 'medlying') 

Burt is 87, and has been playing some of those tunes for 50 years!

 

there is a difference between playing a medley and just playing half a song and stopping though.

[Philomena Cunk]

it really was the bollocks.

Leftfield was immense!

[ads1980]

Biggest tosser I have ever seen. Almost 2 hours of my life gone that I'll never get back. I actually thought he started ok for the first 20 mins and then it just went down hill. No interaction with the crowd and no showmanship. And to round it off by singing a queen song.....well, he isn't in the same league as Mercury!

[deadpheasant]

Biggest disappointment of the festival. Was extremely excited for Kanye but his entire set was a shambles. He had so much potential with the lighting rig, the encore on the crane and bringing on justin vernon as a special guest but it was so disjointed it didn't work. Good thing Flying Lotus more than made up for it the day after.

[Winslow Leach]

I fucking loved it. It was a bizarre, antagonistic, defiant shambles of a show, but it was so totally, utterly and completely him.

 

I'm glad he didn't bring on special guests, or a live orchestra, or an insane light show. 

 

I'm still not sure what happened to the vocals in Hold My Liquor though.

 

Lee Nelson can do one. Awful comedian, now confirmed dickhead.

[Little Andy]

Biggest disappointment of the weekend for me. I know nothing about this genre of music, but wanted to give it a try. I tried out My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy when Kanye first got announced and to me surprise I liked a lot of it. But I found the show so dull, especially as it was all a backing track and just one man rapping. To be fair, I have no idea if this is how a normal rap show is, maybe it is. But the hip-hop stars on the band-stand immediately after Kanye were so much more fun.

[paulmuchmore]

Out of curiosity, how old are the people who didn't like it?

 

My group there was me, 24, brother, 21, mother, 58 and we all loved it.

 

I'm sure Emily Eavis knew he'd be divisive when she booked him, but I don't think she'll regret it.

[tweed1981]

I'm not a Kanye fan but went along expecting to enjoy it. I thought that he/the festival would want to prove all the doubters wrong. I thought rather naively that he might bring on a few special guests and put one a really really good show and everyone would eat their words, I was completely wrong.

In hindsight I should've known there wouldn't be any special guests due to his giant ego, what he actually did now makes perfect sense.

Does he even know how big Glastonbury is? Perhaps he just didn't grasp the enormity of it and didn't bother rehearsing?

[Amy Lawn]

Don't know what the wider concensus is on this, but I loved it. Really fucking loved it. I couldn't get into the front circle, busiest I can remember seeing it, people around me jumping up and down and loving it for the whole thing, I was very shocked that the rest of my group at the back reported boos through the whole thing. Maybe it just didn't translate through to the back, or trolls turned up to heckle and soured it for the others and got them to boo as well? From where I was stood, it looked like a complete success, and my phone blew up with texts from home "Was Yeezy as amazing in real life as he was on TV?" for the most part, but one or two "stood and shouted swear words and stopped a lot" from the haters you'd expect it from.

I do have beef with Yeezy, though. There was one bit, where he was murmuring a few familar opening syllables, my heart nearly stopped, I thought it couldn't be true that'd he'd be doing it, but then there it was; fucking Lost In The World with Justin Vernon on stage, my dream scenario. But then he stopped halfway through to noodle and fuck around, then did the same with Hold My Liquor. Horrible cockteasing, shit shit shit segment of an otherwise wonderful show. It's not like he brought Justin onstage, but did something different yet good, it was just a bit shite.

[JAlexander191]

Loved every minute, had a blast!

[Adystar]

Loved it.so much more exciting than the who snorefest

[EighteenSixty7]

Loved the performance but the setlist wasn't to my liking.

[swede]

It was a trainwreck. Thousands upon thousands upon thousands of people leaving a headliner after 30 minutes is a trainwreck.

I was mortified for him.

I have always valued your opinion on here but im sorry you are talking shite my friend. As a person I think Kanye is the grande fromage of dickheads, I have had my brother who thinks he's the man tell me for months to go see him  and I cracked and did. Ive seen The Rolling Stones, Neil Young, Muse, Metallica, Blur and REM headline that stage and for me, apart from the Libertines the night before for purely personal reasons, that was the greatest thing I have ever seen headline that stage, absoutely epic, even the new stuff Ive never heard before as Im not a fan was stunning. A few times I was in tears due to the shock of the brilliance of I was watching. The part of the field I was in was going crazy which really added to it. From now on he has a free pass from me for the rest of his life after that, Yeezus can do what he wants for me for the rest of his days.

[aidenlangan95]

I really enjoyed it. Had all the hits you wanted.

But I can fully understand why people hated it. Should have been more tight for this show.

Should have been more than just the lights he had. Should have had that for the first few songs and then added something similar to Coachella 2011 but still unique for Glastonbury.

But it was definitely a show which some people loved and most, it seems, hated it. Divisive booking, divisive performance.

[The Nal]

Swede. Glad you enjoyed it. Really am.

I guess hes as marmite as they come so. Most people I spoke to hated it, including a load of randomers. A mate of mine who knows his onions loved it on the telly.

Controversial as expected so!!

[st dan]

I feel it was just about him and his music. Which is what it should all be about.

Yes, it wasn't perfect and there were some gaps, pauses and errors throughout the set but to be fair to him he played most of the songs everybody wanted to hear, he didn't go on one of his rants and I don't think he was over the top ego wise at all. In fact, quite the opposite. The cherry picker gimmic was for the fans and the show, not him trying to prove anything.

He was in a lose lose situation really. Why should be bring special guests on? Arctic Monkeys wouldn't be expected to, so why should one of the most famous / infamous people in the musical world be expected to?

I do feel that he put on a show that would have been much more suited for his own tour as opposed to a festival set, but I enjoyed it, and so did the crowd all around me.

[John_P]

For the most part I enjoyed it. Hope the sizable crowd and for most part positive reactions he got during the performance means Glastonbury can continue to book whoever they please to headline instead of people trying to pigeonhole them into just booking guitar acts.