Reporting back from the first Melbourne stop of the Yeezus tour, LACHLAN KANONIUK types so hard he might break his fucking Macbook Air.
Melbourne endured four Yeezuns in one day as lightning dominated the skyline and I swear to god I think I saw a thunderbolt spell out the Yeezus logo then just before the show the sky turned the colour of red Octobers I dunno how Yeezy did it but man that’s impressive.
Look this should go without saying but last Melbourne show someone thought it would be a good idea to get Sneaky Sound System to open for Kanye. I mean I get Connie Mitchell sang a second-and-a-half on the ‘Flashing Lights’ hook but that doesn’t compensate for lack of relevance in 2012 but anyway King Push’s set tonight was nothing but goddamn fire for an hour straight.
Yeezy cherrypicked a few cruel summer cuts for his setlist but left ‘New God Flow’ for Pusha T. Hell King Push even spat Yeezy’s bars it was dope plus he did My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy’s ‘So Appalled’. It was also dope.
A huge heavy metal take on Star Wars ‘Imperial March’? Pretty much the wet dream of every adolescent from 1977-now. But there’s Kanye, a grown-ass man, elevating from a trap door with blown out riffs filling the arena and blinding red strobes put everybody’s retinas to the absolute limit like the arrival of the villain-iest villain of all time.
If that opening trifecta didn’t shatter your goddamn cranium nothing will. This shit kicked into overdrive from the outset and didn’t let up for a second. This is high octane high adrenaline music not for the faint of heart.
So Ye’s obviously a dad now but his affinity for dadrock preceded his paternity by a long shot. He sampled dadrock gawds Steely Dan on ‘Champion’ ffs, and tonight he preceded ‘Cold’ (probs the weakest link in the setlist tbh) with foreigner’s ‘Cold As Ice’. It was, weird?
808s & Heartbreak only got one showing tonight but it’s probably the best Yeezy-sung hook in his entire oeuvre and everyone in the audience gave it their all.
Not yet obviously because the dude’s still using it but in a century or something? Tonight it rose from the from of the runway like some Indiana Jones shit then Yeezy approached it in a diamond covered mask and duster jacket to trigger the opening piano chime of ‘Runaway’ and just that one keystroke made the whole goddamn stadium wild n’ out.
King Push was probably chillin’ backstage on a Versace sofa in the interim then came out and killed it once again.
I kinda want one but how is anyone gonna rock a full face jewel-incrusted mask without directly biting Kanye’s steez. It’s not like wearing shutter shades as a joke or something, this shit is iconic.
So Kanye’s post-‘Runaway’ rant was pretty restrained this time around with the ad-libbed AutoTune croon of “Don’t fuck with me”, but in one of the all-time great power plays Yeezy launched into a low-key tirade against someone (we’ll probably never find out who) “I ain’t gonna say your name out loud, but I better see them emails in the morning apologising and shit”… “you retweeted that bullshit.”
A few thousand deep, to be precise, as Ye stated everyone in attendance tonight was in fact in his clique in a lil epilogue rant just before the drop in ‘Clique’ speaking of which…
Back before Yeezy’s great Twitter purge of 2012 he tweeted that Skrillex’s remix of ‘cinema’ was the “greatest work of art ever produced” and the evolution of the drop has shifted from dubstep to trap and Yeezy’s got himself a doozy in the TNGHT-produced ‘Blood On The Leaves’ and boy howdy it got a workout tonight.
Midway through the main portion of the set Kanye said “We’re gonna do this again later I just wanna get you ready” then launched into ‘Blood On The Leaves’. But only half of the song just to get the drop right like he was trying to get everyone on his level of drop-appreciation so they could appreciate the drop proper later in the set.
The My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy tour was defined by opulent backdrops and ballet dancers but the Australian iteration of the Yeezus tour was stripped back minimal aesthetics in line with the Donda manifesto and it was truly something to behold.
‘Diamonds From Sierra Leone’ into ‘Jesus Walks’ into ‘All Falls Down’? THAT SHIT IS ACTUALLY UNBELIEVABLE.
I dunno who the guy was singing backing vox tonight but c’mon Ye can’t you put the money up for Uncle Charlie to come along just to sing ‘Bound 2’ yeah?
“THIS IS RAP MUSIC. I WANT YOU TO MAKE A CIRCLE” I guess this is in line with Yeezy’s tour merch appropriating imagery of White America, but instead of the confederate flag Kanye is claiming metal/punk hallmarks and making them his own?
LISTEN GUYS THIS ISN’T A JOKE WE NEED TO MAKE A BIGGER CIRCLE
OK THAT CIRCLE IS PRETTY BIG NOW I GUESS?
This seems like a dumb remark looking back especially considering Kanye dropped his most politically cauterizing album last year but the sentiment felt true at the time when Kanye just wanted everyone to forget the world’s worries and their own and just wild out at a rock concert so we did.
“HOW YOU LIKE YOUR ROCK STARS? POLITICALLY CORRECT?” GOOD QUESTION KANYE! NO, WE DON’T LIKE ‘EM POLITICALLY CORRECT!
Does anyone else come close? If you disagree let us know in the comments! But please keep in mind that your kids will be searching ancestry dot org in 20 years on their Zunewatches or whatever and see that you slighted Yeezus online and will most likely think you’re a piece of shit and lose all respect for you OK?
OK I STRAIGHT UP JUST FUCKIN EXPLODED AND LITERALLY DIED WHEN YEEZY DROPPED ‘BLOOD ON THE LEAVES’ FOR THE THIRD TIME IN THE ONE SET NO JOKE MY MORTAL BEING COULDN’T WITHSTAND THE PURE ENERGY OF THAT DROP ANOTHER TIME AND I COMBUSTED LIKE SOME FUCKIN’ PHOSPHORUS EXPERIMENT IT WAS MESSED UP MUM HAD TO GO PICK UP MY CHARRED REMAINS FROM THE ARENA BUT SHE WAS COOL BECAUSE I DIED DOING WHAT I LOVE – LISTENING TO SICK DROPS. IT’S OK MUM I’M WITH YEEZUS NOW 🙏
AS I OUTLINED ABOVE I ACTUALLY DIED SO I CAN’T COMPLETE THE LIST SOZ 💀 👻
(Photos by Perri Cassie)
Blood On The Leaves x 1-million
N****S In Paris x 1-zillion
Rod Laver Arena, September 9, 2014
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