Kanye West At TD Garden Boston, MA, Saturday, September 3rd, 2016, Reviewed

Everybody hates Kanye.  Everyone says he’s arrogant, rude, obnoxious, a publicity whore and worse. Then there Kim. Everybody hates Kim, her ass, her show, her family.. Then there’s…

Well then there’s a stadium filled with people screaming and lines a mile long to buy ugly t-shirts that say “I Made That Bitch Famous”, “A Fur for you! A Fur for you! A Jet for You, A Jet for You”.

So let me get this straight.

Everybody hates Kanye

But seemingly every hockey jock and every girl who shops at Forever 21 is at TD Garden getting their inner ‘hood rat’ on.. ah Boston, so ugly

Welcome to Saint Pablo tour 2016.  An email advised us that our 8pm start morphed into 9pm DOORS.  That’s right friends, 9pm doors, suddenly I’m back in the club when you no self-respecting ho would step foot in til the moon was high.  But 9pm door?  Madison Square Garden scored a 7pm door 8pm start- could it be Boston’s crew just couldn’t assemble that stage in a timely fashion?  Let’s get it together kids.   Let’s move this shit along.

Kanye West in support of his latest and most orange release Saint Pablo brings the ‘lawd’ to ya’lls neighborhood, along with bleaching assholes and Oprah references.  The man with the most scattered brain is the most genius, the most hated and most admired rapper of current times.  He will be a legend.  He will be hated by the ignorant, he will be misunderstood.  He will never be outdone.

Perched upon his now famous ‘floating’ stage Yeezy took the throngs on a musical adventure through his career and let the crowd step up for Pusha and the other ‘FT’s’ it was interesting to hear.  A crowd so well versed in the lyrics that they truly were an integral part of the show.. hell there would have been dead air if they didn’t pick up the parts.

Kanye is a showman but without pizzazz.  Yeah he’s on a cool stage but he’s just a guy with a mic.  No big dance moves (though he bust it up for a moment now and then)  He entertains solely with his voice.  No easy accomplishment.  The man everyone loves to hate does it meticulously.  There’s that genius element again.

With booming bass and outstanding shout backs we were treated to classic Kanye “Gold Digger” and “Mercy” to “Wolves” and “Ultralight Beam”.  It was very unnerving to see the predominantly white crowd belting out ‘Blood on The Leaves” and “Black Skinhead” as if their ancestors toiled the field.  It seemed awkward but from the looks of the masses they sure as hell didn’t feel it.  Which lead me to wonder if these folks knew what West was singing about- or if the lyrics were just cool to sing.

But that same crowd, your General Admission crowd, followed Kanye’s floating stage from one side of the arena to the other like a pack of loyal disciples and that is what I believe Kanye wanted.  To be look down upon his illuminated subjects as they moshed and flailed below him.  Wide eyed and entranced by the artist the kids were hypnotized.  Maybe it was the copious amounts of piped in smoke (that actually set the Gardens smoke alarms off and literally cut off power to the elevators) or the moody yellow to red lighting but there was a cult like allegiance coming from below that at times worked itself into a frenzy.

Although West didn’t speak much he did two motions of note.  During “Power” he opted to almost recite the lines.  I was disappointed with this. The song has a distinct scream along vibe, to recite it although making you focus more on the words negated the fist pounding beat.  But what was also worth mentioning is the time Kanye took to remind us to love ourselves in order to love our fellow man more. He told us that the media is to blame for stealing our ability to love ourselves because they just want to sell it back to us. Implying of course that we are all victims of societies minds games- hashtag fact on that one.

“It’s a great year to be a Kanye fan”, he stated.  A kinder gentler Kanye was promised so we fans would not have need to ‘whoop any ass” in his defense.

Cuz everybody hates Kanye remember?

Well anyone without a clue hates him, the rest of us bow in the presence of greatness.