There were two stages set up at 
the Little Caesars Arena in Detroit 
on Dec. 5 for Travis Scott’s “Wish 
You Were Here” Tour — one main 
stage in the front and one side 
stage, unimposing even with the 
yawning “O” of the carousel roller 
coaster that had been built on top of 
it, in the back. The fellow Daily Arts 
Writer who was also attending the 
show knew that Travis was going 
to perform the first few songs of the 
show on the back stage and then 
transition to the main stage by way 
of roller coaster. We looked up. The 
skeleton of a roller coaster track 
hung from the arena’s roof. We 
moved to the smaller stage in the 
back and, having guessed correctly, 
found ourselves arms length away 
from Travis Scott himself when the 
show finally started, riding the crest 
of a monstrous mosh pit, losing our 
minds to “STARGAZING.”
Much like ASTROWORLD itself, 
the “Wish You Were Here” Tour 
was twisted around the concept 
of a psychedelic carnival. Each 
detail of the show strove to be more 

ostentatious than the last. The 
visuals were trippy and brightly 
colored, some stretched out of 
proportion as if placed in front of a 
funhouse mirror. Halfway through 
the set, a larger than life astronaut 
popped out of the ground, dwarfing 
Travis Scott as he sat on the end of 
the main stage, a literal man on 
the moon. And the performance’s 
coup de grâce — the massive roller 
coaster that stretched above our 
heads from one stage to the other 
— was near sacrilegious, the GA 
crowd following its track in a mass 
that was reminiscent of Kanye’s 
floating stage during the Saint 
Pablo tour.
It almost was too absurdly gaudy 
— the show’s visuals and props in 
danger of overpowering the music 
itself. As you were thrown around 
from one sweaty body to the next, 
the roar of the crowd and your own 
heartbeat echoing in your ears, 
you could barely hear “Mamacita” 
or “BUTTERFLY EFFECT” or 
“HOUSTONFORNICATION.” 
Yet, as Little Caesars Arena 
exploded in whorls of spiraling 
lights and thrashing arms during 
every era of Travis Scott music 
— from “Quintana” and “Drugs 
You Should Try It” that went all 
the way back to Days Before Rodeo 
and Owl Pharaoh to “goosebumps” 
and “way back” from Birds in the 

Trap Sing McKnight to the more 
popular “NO BYSTANDERS” and 
“STOP TRYING TO BE GOD” 
from ASTROWORLD — we were 
shown that these various garish 
and glaring aspects of the show, as 
well as the rage that accompanied 
every aspect, are as much a part of 
a Travis Scott performance as the 
music itself. 
— Shima Sadaghiyani

FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCK 
OH 
MYYYYY 
GOOOOOOOODDDDD 
HOOOLLLYYYYY SHIIIIIIIIIIII
IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIT!!!!!!
That was the first 10 minutes 
of my experience at Travis Scott’s 
Detroit stop on his monolithic 
“Wish You Were Here” tour. Just 
an arms length from the rail that 
separated the savage crowd from 
the miniature stage on which Scott 
debuted, I was afloat in the oceanic 
energy of the sweaty ragers.
Acknowledging the presence of 
“ragers” at a massively mainstream 
arena concert feels weird to me, and 
that’s the gist of my take on Scott’s 
live show. With conflated identities 
as an imperfect trap demon that 
brought unprecedented energy to 
hip hop and an ambitious chart-
chaser with polished promotional 
tactics, Scott has garnered a 
uniquely eclectic fanbase over 

SHIMA SADAGHIYANI
Daily Music Edtor

&
MIKE WATKINS
Daily Arts Writer

CONCERT REVIEW

On Elizabeth Alexander’s 
masterful words, poetry

“This unlikely thing of being 
a poet has given me a place for all 
that strange music in my brain.” 
There’s 
something 
thrilling 
about walking to UMMA in 
anticipation of a Helen Zell Visiting 
Writers reading. I love sitting in 
the Helmut Stern Auditorium, 
underneath the lights that look like 
floating candles, and gathering in 
The Apse surrounded by artwork 
and artists alike. 
This past Tuesday, I attended 
the Zell Visiting Writer Series with 
readings from Elizabeth Alexander, 
Distinguished Poet in Residence. 
Alexander is an incredibly talented 
writer with a number of accolades 
to show for it. She composed and 
delivered “Praise Song for the 
Day” at the inauguration of former 
President Barack Obama, was a 
Pulitzer Prize finalist for her book 
of poems “American Sublime” and 
was recently appointed President of 
the Andrew H. Mellon Foundation. 
 
But Alexander is more than her 
impressive list of accomplishments. 
She’s deeply curious. She’s thinking 
about big ideas. She’s constantly 
experimenting with sound, form 
and genre. 
Alexander opened her reading 
with a discussion of freedom, 
asking the audience, “What does 
freedom look like? What does it 

look like when we lose it? How do 
we guard it?”
Using 
this 
framework, 
Alexander read “Emancipation.” 
She plays with alliteration in the 
first line: “corncob constellation.” 
The poem is a conglomeration of 
unlikely words, references and 
sounds coming together. Alexander 
mentions Linda Brent, a character 
from “Incidents in the Life of a 
Slave Girl” by Harriet Jacobs, who 
grapples with a choice between 
freedom and staying a slave to be 
with her children. Though the end 
of the poem ends with the lines 
“We’re free,” Brent ultimately 
chooses 
motherhood, 
making 
me wonder if the poem is saying 
emancipation isn’t as easy as being 
told you’re free. 
Throughout 
her 
reading, 
Alexander offered writers in the 
audience small tidbits of advice.
“For those of who you are 
writing, history is an extraordinary 
source,” Alexander said. “Though 
historians have done a great job of 
figuring out the past, there are still 
gaps, and we can fill in the spaces 
historians cannot.” 
Alexander 
thinks 
about 
historical gaps with her poetic 
sequence “Amistad,” which is 
based on the famous story of the 
Amistad ship that was carrying 
African captives to Cuba. The 
captives took control of the 
ship, steering it north until they 
arrived in Connecticut. Alexander 

imagines the perspective of some 
of the captives, from someone who 
watches a blue whale swimming 
alongside the vessel for hours, to a 
little boy who has no mother and 
whose father possibly just died 
next to him. 
My favorite out of Alexander’s 
poems read aloud was “Ars 
Poetica 17: First Afro-American 
Esperantist.” The poem’s strong 
words varied vastly in sound, from 
“gumbo” to “certificate.” This 
poem reminded me that language 
is meant to be spoken and heard, 
as reading the poem in your head 
doesn’t give you the full effect of 
Alexander’s pauses and drawn out 
words. 
Alexander concluded the night 
by reading from her memoir 
“The Light of the World,” in 
which Alexander reflects on the 
unexpected death of her husband, 
who passed away at only 49 years 
old. Though writing a memoir 
gave her a “momentary crisis about 
genre,” she realized “these words 
were poet’s prose.” 
Alexander’s decision to focus 
the reading on the idea of freedom 
was a smart one. In moving 
from historical freedom to the 
personal freedom of writing what 
she needed to grieve, Alexander 
effectively shared how poetry is 
her mental freedom, and can be 
ours too. 
The Zell Visiting Writers Series 
will return next semester. 

NITYA GUPTA
Daily Arts Writer

COMMUNITY CULTURE

FLICKR

Travis Scott is peaking on
‘Wish You Were Here’ tour

FLICKR

the course of his career to which 
the Astroworld tour is expertly 
catered. To your left could be a 
24-year-old who got lit to “Upper 
Echelon” while driving to a party 
in her junior year of high school, 
to your right could be a 13-year-
old whose mom is parked outside 
with a budding teenage angst that 
is tragically fueled by “Sicko Mode” 
— and both would leave the concert 
perfectly content.
Oftentimes, arena shows are 
vacuums — the venues are just too 
big and contain too many people to 
emulate the intimacy and energy of 
smaller settings. To compensate, 

these blockbuster performances 
boast incredible stage designs 
with colossal props to keep the 
audience at least visually engaged 
(see: Kendrick Lamar’s “DAMN” 
tour). Somehow, Scott avoided this 
plague, shrinking Little Caesars 
Arena to provide longtime fans 
the chaotic energy they associated 
with the prince of their high school 
hip-hop days while riding a roller 
coaster above the crowd to inspire 
recent fans who couldn’t believe 
they were witnessing their favorite 
superstar in action.
The show was a unique moment 
between young and old — both 

“Mamacita” and “NC-17” received 
equal applause. This rarity is likely 
because Scott rests at a special point 
in his career, with overlapping 
respect from fans of five years and 
fans of five months. This moment 
is incredibly transient — just ask 
Eminem. As an artist grows, 
they shed the characteristics that 
brought them into the spotlight in 
favor of new characteristics that 
attempt to hold the spotlight in 
place as it naturally migrates to 
the next star. I’m glad I was able 
to catch Scott before this demise 
takes place.
— Mike Watkins

6A — Monday, December 10, 2018
Arts
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com

