so, Stormzy then...?

[dentalplan]

If the people around you at Kanye left, you’re the lucky one. I felt like I was in a sea of people who, from start to finish, was rooting for him to fail.

Stormzy won’t have that though - Tame Impala have a pretty strong buzz around them still and will scoop up a lot of floating voters.

[bombfrog]

3 minutes ago, ghostdancer1 said:

they're probably like the many people on here who seemed to go to "check it out" even though they don't seem to actually like his music (bar a few early singles)

I love his music, but thought it was awful.

[mouserat]

42 minutes ago, Winslow Leach said:

Kanye was good though.

His set almost felt like quantum physics - capable of producing completely different responses. Even among our group, we all came away with a completely different take.

Personally, I thought the best bits were amazing but the lows were quite bad. There was a ramshackle improvisatory/rambling nature to some of the Bon Iver segment and this combined with do-overs and 'no, like we did it in rehearsal' killed the atmosphere a bit.

That said, I completely understand that if it was a guitar band fucking up an intro, cutting a song short or not getting the words right that it wouldn't have been as noticeable because "that's rock and roll". So I'm willing to let Kanye have his occasional mis-step.

[ghostdancer1]

3 minutes ago, bombfrog said:

I love his music, but thought it was awful.

what did you find awful? I don't really know what else could have been changed bar tightening it up a little with the transition to crane (maybe that should have been as the encore rather than a few minutes of downtime during the set).

I thought his rapping was perfectly fine? Did you think it was poor?

the band/backing singer were good I thought.

Song selection was pretty good (lose Bon Iver's stuff would have improved it) - what songs would you have added?

 

[Winslow Leach]

re. the crowd not being impressed, it was easily the worst, most unpleasant festival crowd I've ever been in and a significant enough portion of people there were there to root for a car crash.

 

The Bon Iver segment was odd, and I still wonder if there was some issue going on behind the scenes. I've no idea why they started Hold My Liquor only to let it quietly fizzle into nothing.

Edited June 11, 2019 by Winslow Leach

[bombfrog]

1 minute ago, ghostdancer1 said:

what did you find awful? I don't really know what else could have been changed bar tightening it up a little with the transition to crane (maybe that should have been as the encore rather than a few minutes of downtime during the set).

I thought his rapping was perfectly fine? Did you think it was poor?

the band/backing singer were good I thought.

Song selection was pretty good (lose Bon Iver's stuff would have improved it) - what songs would you have added?

 

I just remember he played a lot of stuff off Yeezus and Pablo but rushed through the older stuff. I think he started with about half of Stronger and a couple of decent tracks before spending half the set doing covers and newer tracks I don't like (Black Skinheads Blood On The Leaves). We got a few big ones at the end but I'm fairly sure he missed some big ones entirely.

Looking at the setlist again it looks like he did play most of his better tracks but at the time it just felt like even those were just stripped back to the beats so we could all concentrate on him rapping, which some people obviously like, I sort of do too but the best thing about (old) Kanye was always the production. HE's a good rapper but he's a much better producer. That bass when Gold Digger kicks in, the trumpets which announce the coming of All of the Lights, even the chipmunks in Through the Wire (the first Kanye track I ever heard which again he didn't play). None of that seemed to have any impact when he played them live.

Like I said, if you like seeing one guy, under some lights (and occasionally up a crane) rapping relentlessly for 2 hours, no big guest appearences, no musicians on stage, no orchestra, no light show, just him, then great. But I was expecting a lot more from one of the biggest hyped headline sets. My overriding feeling when walking away from it was that his set was only ever going to appeal to his most hardcore of fans and that he'd made absolutely no attempt to win over anybody else, basically because of his ego. Totally the opposite to what Jay-Z did.

Oh, and in the run up to it I'd watched some of the making of Late Orchestration on Youtube with a 17 piece orchestra at Abbey Road. It shows firstly his absolute passion for the music he's making, but also it shows how he can get the absolute best out of his songs.

[bombfrog]

24 minutes ago, ghostdancer1 said:

what songs would you have added?

As I said, not so much what songs I would of added, more that he rushed/ruined some of the big stuff so I'd like to have seen them done properly.

I'd have added...

• Heard 'em Say
• Through The Wire
• Love Lockdown
• Monster
• Flashing Lights

I'd have removed

• Clique
• I Don't Like
• I Wonder
• Woods
• Mercy

... and to be honest at least another 5 songs I'd happily see taken out of the middle.

[jow95]

Loads of people talking about the floating voters turning up and all the people turning up to see him fail like it’s a bad thing. It’s a festival full of 200,000+ people of different music tastes, some artists would do anything to even play in front of 100 of those people, I fail to see how that’s a bad thing. Surely the job of the artist (although I accept can be an uphill battle) is to get that audience in front of them on side and give them an exciting performance. I just don’t see it as an excuse, headlining Glastonbury is arguably one of the greatest honours in music and if you can’t take hold of that moment then take your cherry picker and after you’ve spent 5 minutes strapping yourself in, and slowly leave the farm.

 

Think Stormzy will smash it though.

[ghostdancer1]

4 minutes ago, bombfrog said:

I just remember he played a lot of stuff off Yeezus and Pablo but rushed through the older stuff. I think he started with about half of Stronger and a couple of decent tracks before spending half the set doing covers and newer tracks I don't like (Black Skinheads Blood On The Leaves). We got a few big ones at the end but I'm fairly sure he missed some big ones entirely.

Looking at the setlist again it looks like he did play most of his better tracks but at the time it just felt like even those were just stripped back to the beats so we could all concentrate on him rapping, which some people obviously like, I sort of do too but the best thing about (old) Kanye was always the production. HE's a good rapper but he's a much better producer. That bass when Gold Digger kicks in, the trumpets which announce the coming of All of the Lights, even the chipmunks in Through the Wire (the first Kanye track I ever heard which again he didn't play). None of that seemed to have any impact when he played them live.

Like I said, if you like seeing one guy, under some lights (and occasionally up a crane) rapping relentlessly for 2 hours, no big guest appearences, no musicians on stage, no orchestra, no light show, just him, then great. But I was expecting a lot more from one of the biggest hyped headline sets. My overriding feeling when walking away from it was that his set was only ever going to appeal to his most hardcore of fans and that he'd made absolutely no attempt to win over anybody else, basically because of his ego. Totally the opposite to what Jay-Z did. 

Oh, and in the run up to it I'd watched some of the making of Late Orchestration on Youtube with a 17 piece orchestra at Abbey Road. It shows firstly his absolute passion for the music he's making, but also it shows how he can get the absolute best out of his songs.

Have you watched it since then? Because I wouldn't really agree with a lot of what you said, I'd say much of it is factually incorrect TBH.

He didn't play anything from The Life of Pablo at all. Out of 29 songs, only 5 were from Yeezus. The beats weren't stripped back for the "better" tracks, they were pretty much straight up studio versions. There was only 1 cover - Woods, arguably a second if you want to include his verse the remix of Chief Keef's I Don't Like which he performed too, pretty much everything he did was his own songs. There were musicians on stage - Mike Dean on keys and guitar, another guitarist, Bon Iver on synth for a few songs, a backing singer. There was quite clearly a light show, I'd have said that would be one of the first things people would remember of his performance.

 

[Winslow Leach]

Pablo wasn't even out then.

[bombfrog]

15 minutes ago, ghostdancer1 said:

Have you watched it since then? Because I wouldn't really agree with a lot of what you said, I'd say much of it is factually incorrect TBH.

He didn't play anything from The Life of Pablo at all. Out of 29 songs, only 5 were from Yeezus. The beats weren't stripped back for the "better" tracks, they were pretty much straight up studio versions. There was only 1 cover - Woods, arguably a second if you want to include his verse the remix of Chief Keef's I Don't Like which he performed too, pretty much everything he did was his own songs. There were musicians on stage - Mike Dean on keys and guitar, another guitarist, Bon Iver on synth for a few songs, a backing singer. There was quite clearly a light show, I'd have said that would be one of the first things people would remember of his performance.

 

We were right up the top of the hil but all I remember seeing was Kanye. If he had a live band they must have been in the dark at the back of the stage. Like I say, I used to love Kanye, especially the first 3 albums (4 if you count Late Orchestration) and the next two were pretty good too. This is the setlist...

 

1. Stronger
2. Power
3. Niggas in Paris (JAY Z & Kanye West cover)
4. Black Skinhead (Aborted and re-started due to stage invader)
5. All Day
   • + Cold as Ice (Foreigner song)
6. Cold
7. Clique (Kanye West, Jay-Z & Big Sean cover)
8. I Don't Like (Chief Keef cover) (Remix)
9. Mercy (Kanye West, Big Sean, Pusha T & 2 Chainz cover)
10. New Slaves
11. Blood on the Leaves
12. Heartless (verse 2 and 3 were performed)
13. I Wonder (first time since 2013)
14. FourFiveSeconds (Rihanna and Kanye West and Paul McCartney cover) (Kanye solo live debut)
15. Woods (Bon Iver cover)
16. Lost in the World (with Justin Vernon) (Extended version. 1st time… more )
17. Hold My Liquor (with Justin Vernon) (first time that he performed… more )
18. No Church in the Wild (JAY Z & Kanye West cover) (Kanye solo live debut)
19. Jesus Walks
20. Diamonds From Sierra Leone
21. Bound 2
22. Runaway
23. Only One
24. Touch the Sky (Aborted and re-started)
25. All of the Lights
26. Good Life
    • + Bohemian Rhapsody(Queen song) (Kanye / crowd singalong until… more )
27. Can't Tell Me Nothing
28. Gold Digger
29. All Falls Down

I'd gladly have seen the section in red removed and so would everybody we knew. We came so close to leaving. I mean, what is the point in doing FourFiveSeconds solo? It was never a great track with Rihanna and Macca on it!

 

[bombfrog]

8 minutes ago, Winslow Leach said:

Pablo wasn't even out then.

Yeah, my mistake. It was a combination of Yeezus and random collaborations that filled the middle section.

[Yokel Again]

Wasn't there the Kanye year so can't really comment on what it was like (apart from on TV) - although I do bet he's the only ever headliner of the pyramid stage to have to restart 2 separate songs for messing them up. (Forgive me if I've not recalled that right).

[Winslow Leach]

1 minute ago, bombfrog said:

We were right up the top of the hil but all I remember seeing was Kanye. If he had a live band they must have been in the dark at the back of the stage. Like I say, I used to love Kanye, especially the first 3 albums (4 if you count Late Orchestration) and the next two were pretty good too. This is the setlist...

 

1. Stronger
2. Power
3. Niggas in Paris (JAY Z & Kanye West cover)
4. Black Skinhead (Aborted and re-started due to stage invader)
5. All Day
   • + Cold as Ice (Foreigner song)
6. Cold
7. Clique (Kanye West, Jay-Z & Big Sean cover)
8. I Don't Like (Chief Keef cover) (Remix)
9. Mercy (Kanye West, Big Sean, Pusha T & 2 Chainz cover)
10. New Slaves
11. Blood on the Leaves
12. Heartless (verse 2 and 3 were performed)
13. I Wonder (first time since 2013)
14. FourFiveSeconds (Rihanna and Kanye West and Paul McCartney cover) (Kanye solo live debut)
15. Woods (Bon Iver cover)
16. Lost in the World (with Justin Vernon) (Extended version. 1st time… more )
17. Hold My Liquor (with Justin Vernon) (first time that he performed… more )
18. No Church in the Wild (JAY Z & Kanye West cover) (Kanye solo live debut)
19. Jesus Walks
20. Diamonds From Sierra Leone
21. Bound 2
22. Runaway
23. Only One
24. Touch the Sky (Aborted and re-started)
25. All of the Lights
26. Good Life
    • + Bohemian Rhapsody(Queen song) (Kanye / crowd singalong until… more )
27. Can't Tell Me Nothing
28. Gold Digger
29. All Falls Down

I'd gladly have seen the section in red removed and so would everybody we knew. We came so close to leaving. I mean, what is the point in doing FourFiveSeconds solo? It was never a great track with Rihanna and Macca on it!

 

Oh come on, why would he have skipped Black Skinhead? it was the biggest hit off his most recent album at the time. What you mean is you don't like Yeezus, which is fine, but obviously he was going to play at least a couple of songs from it.

 

[Winslow Leach]

7 minutes ago, Yokel Again said:

Wasn't there the Kanye year so can't really comment on what it was like (apart from on TV) - although I do bet he's the only ever headliner of the pyramid stage to have to restart 2 separate songs for messing them up. (Forgive me if I've not recalled that right).

The first one was a stage invader to be fair.

[bombfrog]

19 minutes ago, Winslow Leach said:

Oh come on, why would he have skipped Black Skinhead? it was the biggest hit off his most recent album at the time. 

Ok, have that one back but it's splitting hairs. The point is that he did absolutely nothing to please the masses. It was a hardcore Kanye set for hardcore Kanye fans.

Oh and let's not forget that "Stronger" was a number 1 single, Golddigger got to nuber 2. Black Skinhead got to number 34, so let's not pretend it was a hit.

[Matt - Ed Banger Records]

Good to see that the Kanye West discussions are continuing 4 years later anyway.

[Winslow Leach]

1 minute ago, bombfrog said:

Ok, have that one back but it's splitting hairs. The point is that he did absolutely nothing to please the masses. It was a hardcore Kanye set for hardcore Kanye fans.

Oh and let's not forget that "Stronger" was a number 1 single, Golddigger got to nuber 2. Black Skinhead got to number 34, so let's not pretend it was a hit.

And FourFiveSeconds got to number 5, which is significantly higher than Heard 'Em Say or Monster, while we're splitting hairs.

[bombfrog]

5 minutes ago, Winslow Leach said:

And FourFiveSeconds got to number 5, which is significantly higher than Heard 'Em Say or Monster, while we're splitting hairs.

Not without Rihanna and Paul McCartney it didn't, while we're splitting them further.

Anyway, none of this matters. Nobody is saying that you're not allowed to have liked it, some did and that's nobody's business but theirs, but surely you can't posibly be arguing that his set went down well with the majority, can you? It hasn't gone down in history as a success like Jay-Z's set, has it.

[ghostdancer1]

6 minutes ago, bombfrog said:

Ok, have that one back but it's splitting hairs. The point is that he did absolutely nothing to please the masses. It was a hardcore Kanye set for hardcore Kanye fans.

Oh and let's not forget that "Stronger" was a number 1 single, Golddigger got to nuber 2. Black Skinhead got to number 34, so let's not pretend it was a hit. 

he played most of his hits. ?

Yes, Stronger and Golddigger were hits, not really sure what your point is there, as it quite clearly shows that it wasn't a "hardcore Kayne set for hardcore Kanye fans".

 

the songs you wanted added:

Heard Em Say - got to no.22

Through The Wire - no.9

Love Lockdown - no.8

Monster - no.146

Flashing Lights - no. 29

 

 

seem like you're annoyed that he didn't do all his old songs with a full orchestra.

give me Black Skinhead and Yeezus over old cheesey shite of Heard Em Say (and the threat of him from Maroon 5) any day of the week.

 

[Winslow Leach]

Just now, bombfrog said:

Not without Rihanna and Paul McCartney it didn't, while we're splitting them further.

Anyway, none of this matters. Nobody is saying that you're not allowed to have liked it, some did and that's nobody's business but theirs, but surely you can't posibly be arguing that his set went down well with the majority, can you? It hasn't gone down in history as a success like Jay-Z's set, has it.

Syleena Johnson wasn't there either but he still played All Falls Down.

[ghostdancer1]

46 minutes ago, bombfrog said:

We were right up the top of the hil but all I remember seeing was Kanye. If he had a live band they must have been in the dark at the back of the stage. Like I say, I used to love Kanye, especially the first 3 albums (4 if you count Late Orchestration) and the next two were pretty good too. This is the setlist...

 

 

he literally introduced them during the gig....

lots of people repeated that on here after too. Clearly some people only heard and saw what they wanted to...

[Yokel Again]

36 minutes ago, Winslow Leach said:

The first one was a stage invader to be fair.

Ah sorry, I thought it was 2 songs plus the stage invader, but have never re-watched it. 

[Winslow Leach]

Also, for what it's worth, I thought the white lighting rig without any band/technicians visible worked really well.

I appreciate it probably looked a lot more impressive from down in the crowd than up on the hill though.

 

 

[bombfrog]

Fine. Just me then. Everybody thought Kanye was brilliant.