I think I'm Kind of Important Now.

I cannot be enthused enough about Kanye West's concert. From the moment he opened with "Diamonds are Forever" it was absolutely electric.

Sacha and I sat on the last row of the dress circle in the Concert Hall of the Opera House. I can finally say that I've seen something in it! We were pretty lucky to get tickets - as Kanye said later, the concert sold out in 3 minutes. You could still see him clearly but couldn't make out any faces. We waited for perhaps about 30 minutes before the concert started.

The 18 piece string orchestra - all women in lovely black dresses - filled in. The lead violinist, who we later found out is with Kanye's team and is in charge of teaching all the orchestras the sequencing and practicing with them before every concert was in white. She was rather enthusiastic and kept waving at everybody and dancing up and down, even chatting with some people on the sides, which I found rather unprofessional, given that the rest of the orchestra was just sitting on stage. I kept wondering, what is up with this girl but then that was explained later when Kanye introduced his band. Everyone in the orchestra wore red wraparound shades to protect them from the strobe lights.

I was sort of feeling a little old, a lot of the people there were teenagers in retro clothes - I have never understood the 80s resurrection, the big belts, the weird Madonna style layering (sleeveless with off the shoulder), the high waists, I could go on. This was slightly alleviated by the fact that there were some older people, plus he did a slight retrospective on music that influenced him - with some Jackson 5 and AHA's Take On Me which everyone sang along to. I really enjoyed that - especially since he did some 80s dancing to Take On Me - and then I began to wonder if everyone else knew what it was because of the 80s bands or because of the boyband revivals...

We were up on our feet the moment he started. We sat down every now and then but a lot of people just didn't bother. A whole lot of them knew the lyrics to every song, I could only follow along with some of them. Sacha and I had just gotten his first album, College Dropout, courtesy of Pat our nice housemate who downloaded it using torrents recently and I didn't really listen to it much so there were some songs that sounded familiar but I didn't know the lyrics too.

In the middle of it all, he did a retrospective on the hiphop songs that influenced him, and he talked about how he had produced a lot of songs from famous hip hop artists like Ludacris. Kanye being Kanye, he also talked about himself a lot. Whatever anyone's ever said about his ego is true. I found it funny, as he makes fun of himself in a disparaging/egoistic way as well. Sacha thought that he was "like a child" because he lapped up all the attention we gave him. I suppose it didn't help that no matter what he said we all screamed anyway, even when he talked about his contribution to hip hop and said, "I think I'm a notch above everyone else" and, "I think I'm Kind of Important Now." Which I found funny but true. I don't know enough about hip hop to say what kind of important contribution he's made, although I've heard it said, but I love his music so he's important to me!.

The orchestra was excellent as well, and the lead violinist chick kept bouncing up and down. We all went crazy when he did Golddigger and then the lights went out, which I presume is the way he ends it, because every performer has about 2 songs as an encore and they always make it sound like they never plan it and the audience has to force them but really its planned all along. Well, we all certainly encouraged him, everyone screamed and clapped and someone even yelled out, "Wake Up Mr West!".

When he came back on he asked everyone to scream "so loud that I shouldn't even be able to hear the music" and we obliged. He also thanked all of us for coming and said, "thank you to all the girls who spent a little extra time getting ready because they knew they were going to see Kanye." I found that funny. The girl next to me was practically hyperventilating everytime a new song came out going, "Oh My God, Oh My God!". She knew every line, including the ones from the intros to his songs where he was just talking, as he did the intros too. (It made me wonder how wacko my friend Nic and I are going to be when we get to U2)

He ended the night with Touch the Sky, which is my favorite Kanye song and of course we all went wild. It was one of the best concerts I've ever been to (not that I've been to much, I seem to be making up for it this month...).

And yes, I am a hip hop fan. (but I'm not jologz :P)