The concert’s extravagant, tightly-coiled production is a hint at what that 2009 tour might’ve played like, but watching it Friday felt like a confirmation that the tour shouldn’t-couldn’t- have been.Īt the time, I was not a member of this cult. The cancellation is a curious asterisk to note now, ultimately less remembered than the Swiftgate that caused it, and might’ve remained a simple footnote in a career of major headlines had Kanye West not spontaneously revived the album for two nights at the Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles this weekend. Within weeks of the airing, Fame Kills was cancelled. Thousands of the fans West planned to meet on tour with Lady Gaga instead got to know him on TV with Taylor Swift. But at the 2009 Video Music Awards, Kanye West interrupted Taylor Swift to declare that her Best Female Video award, the first VMA awarded to a country artist, should have gone to Beyoncé. “It’s going to be one of the most groundbreaking moments in touring history,” Gaga promised then, excited to fully consummate hip-hop and pop’s flirtatious summer spent singing along together to the Black Eyed Peas. So, as he’d done before with Jay Z, Jon Brion and Daft Punk, West stood next to an artist that would drag him out of his comfort zone, gaining new fans and a sure footing with dance, pop, rock, and even gay audiences. West had spent the past year shaking off his sample-filled backpack to become a load-bearing stake in music at large: if “Stronger” and the Glow In The Dark tour made him biggest rapper in the world, the only goal left was to be the “greatest living rock star on the planet,” too. The two would showcase what were up until then their loudest, shiniest works: West’s 808s & Heartbreak and Gaga’s The Fame Monster, side-by-side. The ill-fated 2009 tour was meant to be a traveling pop-art carnival co-starring Kanye West and Lady Gaga.

Kanye 808s and heartbreak concert