a freaky freezy tour would be truly revolutionary

my nephew has a glow in the dark t-shirt. his sister thinks it is beyond ridiculous cool. this is maybe because she is six.

pondering glow in the dark ...


opinion 1:
This was supposed to be the tour that launched Kanye West out of the orbit of mere hip-hop stars and up to the level of arena masters such as U2.

And why not? He's got three hot albums to draw from, three first-rate acts to support him, a more-than-ample budget, endless ambition and fans so fired up they gave Warriors star Baron Davis a standing O just for walking to his seat.

Everything was set up for an out-of-this-world night. Instead, on Saturday at San Jose's HP Pavilion, the third stop on his "Glow in the Dark" tour, Kanye West crashed ...


opinion 2:
This was pure comic-book adventure, obvious at times. But the real message came through those unstoppable images. Glow in the Dark raises the bar for arena tours as no show has since U2's 1992 Zoo TV breakthrough. It's that innovative and galvanizing.

Unlike most highly staged concerts since U2's meditation on rock in the media age, West's show isn't literary at heart. It's imagistic. West is a conceptual artist who works in visuals as well as sound, and his inspiration comes from fine artists such as Takashi Murakami and haute couture designers like Hedi Slimane. In this show, he's imagining not so much how a hero's story unfolds but what a hero might say if he were to rap -- and how he might appear onstage...

and:
this article has more in-depth details on the glow in the dark shizz
General consensus: West is taking himself awfully seriously with this show, and the hubris borders on the ludicrous — and yet the whole thing manages to be fairly galvanizing anyway, thanks to his being fully committed at every step of the way.

image via kanye's shilltastic blog.