Photo by Killian Young
Kanye West capped off the first day of Made in America’s Philadelphia festival Saturday night with a blitzing 21-song headlining performance. The set was also streamed live online and can be replayed in full below.
After dedicating the first half of his set to material from Yeezus, My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy, and Cruel Summer, Kanye waxed nostalgia with “Stronger”, “Jesus Walks”, “All Falls Down”, “Touch the Sky”, and “Good Life”.
Perhaps most noticeable about Kanye’s performance, however, was his attitude. Long dogged by headlines about angry rants and blow-ups at his former DJ, Kanye was in good spirits throughout the set: He introduced “All of the Lights” by joking that it as “his “biggest underground hit,” enthusiastically shouted “nailed it!” after “Good Life”, and encouraged the audience to form a giant circle pit during his encore performance of “Blood on the Leaves”.
Kanye also kept his stream of consciousness to a minimum, and when he did speak out, it was all positive. “I’ve got love for everybody in the media and all the tabloids — I know everybody is doing their job,” he told the audience. “Before we go to the next song, I want people to realize what we do is we put our love, our heart, our pain, our struggle, our story, our lives in until 3 a.m. every night in the studio for this.” Later, he gave a shout-out to the festival’s curator, Jay Z, which should help alleviate rumors of a feud between the two rappers.
All that positivity seemed to translate into an even more impressive live performance than usual. Musically, Kanye maintained a high amount of energy for each song, flubbing few lines and showing general excitement toward all his material, even tracks which date back a decade. Meanwhile, Mike Dean, who accompanied Kanye on keyboard and guitar, stood out on his own with one impressive performance after another.
Kanye returns to the stage this evening for a set at Made in America’s Los Angeles festival. You can stream it live online here beginning at 9:45 p.m. PT.
Setlist:
Black Skinhead
I Don’t Like
Mercy
Cold
Can’t Tell Me Nothing
New Slaves
Power
Blood on the Leaves
Stronger
Runaway
Run This Town
Diamonds from Sierra Leone
Heartless
Jesus Walks
All Falls Down
Touch the Sky
All of the Lights
Good Life
Bound 2
Encore:
Blood on the Leaves (Reprise)