The performer gradually became more animated with each number, which corresponded with the album’s tonal shifts.
At the Bowl, however, West’s reservations rendered him uncharacteristically endearing. The artist’s demeanor was somber in contrast to his recent frenetic set at the FYF Festival or his made-for-social-media ramble onstage at the MTV Video Music Awards. He moved carefully from number to number, pouring himself into songs such as “Welcome to Heartbreak” as women in white, ghostly shrouds orbited the stage in a slow march that resembled a sort of pilgrimage.
Usually a man of many words, West said relatively few as he concentrated on performing the album in its entirety. Much like the rapper himself, the production was a mix of attention-grabbing bombast and biting realism, filled with austere beauty and high school melodrama. At his Bowl opening Friday, the first of two nights, West did his best to recapture the nihilism, vulnerability and ultimate redemption that has since made “808s” one of the more influential albums in rap (without it, Drake, the Weeknd and Frank Ocean might not exist).
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