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