| Concert Review of Kanye West at Memorial Coliseum on Fri Dec 09, 2005 |
| Event Date |
| Fri Dec 09, 2005 |
| Source |
| The Oregonian |
| Concert Review Preview |
| Music review West gets 'em going but isn't Hip-hop show - The Grammy nominee plays to a half-empty arena Monday, December 12, 2005 MARTY HUGHLEY On Thursday morning, hip-hop performer/producer/mogul Kanye West was nominated for eight Grammy Awards, adding to his 10-nomination and three-win haul from last year and bolstering his status as one of the most acclaimed pop music artists of the decade. On Friday night, West performed to a half-empty Memorial Coliseum. World domination is a tricky business, apparently. Yet if the so-so ticket sales suggest he might not be the irresistible force he likes to believe (there was a Blazers basketball game at the arena next door, but these days that's certainly no excuse for the concert's low turnout), the youthful crowd was anything but an immovable object. From the moment West took the stage to start the show with the determinedly uplifting "Touch the Sky," his fans were in motion. The hydraulic thump of a programmed kick drum, an artful weave of gospel and soul samples, and the emphatic flow of West's words carried the prime directive to dancing muscles. And so it was through much of the show, the crowd a happy sea of bouncing knees, bobbing heads, waving arms. At times, there was no mystery to West's appeal, such as on his No. 1 hit (and now Grammy nominee for song of the year and record of the year) "Gold Digger," with its sexy, syncopated beat and the tasty, if perfunctory, melodic hook sampled from Jamie Foxx impersonating Ray Charles. Or on "Roses," with its touching evocation of family crisis and pointed commentary on health care inequity. Or on "Jesus Walks," with its martial rhythm and the urgency of the lyric's tension between good and evil. These are top-shelf examples of mainstream contemporary pop. And yet . . . Taken as a whole, West's show was nothing special -- either as a demonstration of innovation and artistry or merely as a pop spectacle. For starters, there's the matter of intonation. When singing or even merely chanting a hook, West more often than not was painfully, distractingly flat. Granted, he's a rapper more than a singer, but even at that, he didn't distinguish himself through a commanding sound or a rhythmic inventiveness. . |
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