Kanye West performed a one off secret gig at Central Hall, Westminster on Monday 20/08/2007. This was part of the Vodafone TBA [Live Music] series of events.
The location was kept a secret until 3pm that afternoon, when a selected number of people received the second of two text messages confirming the location. Having been told in the text to arrive between 18:30 and 19:30 it was evident by the length of the queue that we were not going to get in before 19:30. In the end that did not matter as the entry time was not being enforced.
It was not until 21:15 that the concert started, with the ‘I Wonder’ track from the new album opening up the gig. It was a strange venue for a concert and sitting in the circle the acoustics was not the best it could have been.
Kanye performance was full of energy as he danced, sometimes giving the impression that he was in a boxing match bobbing and weaving. He sung most of his hits from the first two albums. The only glaring omission was ‘Gold Digger’ from the ‘Late Registration’ album. After about 45 minutes you felt as those the concert was coming to an end. There were one or two encores that stretched it out for just over an hour with the final song being ‘Touch The Sky’.
In my opinion I felt the concert rated 7/10. The gig was being filmed for later transmission on Channel 4.
Kanye West ‘Graduation’ album is released on Monday 10th September 2007.