A FEW REASONS TO RECONSIDER THE CANCELATION OF YOUR SALT LAKE CITY TOUR DATE
Hello Mr. West (Mr. West…
Mr. West… )
Greetings from Utah!
I'll say first that I’m a big fan. I love your music. I like your style. I like
the shape of your face. I like the way you talk. Sometimes I’ll do my best
impression and shout, “It’s been like that for a minute, Hedi Slimane!” at my wife. I like
all your albums. 808s, too — I don’t
get the disrespect. I even listened to a 10-year-old Go-Getters compilation I
found online. An interesting artifact, but, among other things, not enough
Kanye.
I liked your early albums, but I loved My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy. It really took me in and I
listened on repeat for a long time. I sing my two babies to sleep with it. And
now Yeezus. Gosh, man. Awesome. It’s
minimalist but it’s layered. It’s discordant but it draws you in. You know
that, but maybe it’s rad for you to hear it from just some dude in Salt Lake. I
think there’s only one more person ahead of me in line for Yeezus at the Salt Lake City Library. I’ll have it for four weeks when
my turn comes and I’ma wear that disc out.
And then I find out you’re coming on tour?! I saw your tour
dates on Pitchfork and I was like, “Oh my heck! I can't believe he's coming to Salt Lake!" Couldn’t believe it. I was so stoked! Only after I had my
tickets in hand did it feel real.
Then my wife said she wanted to go too and I was like, “Holy
crap! This is going to be the best!” We can totally get a babysitter for
something like this, I thought. My brother lives really close and my parents aren’t
much further up I-15. We bought the cheapest tickets on the balcony (sorry! We’re used to seeing $15 shows,
sometimes $20) because those fees you gotta pay when you buy in advance… Ouch.
Anyway, totally worth the $90+. Never thought twice
about it. Even though, you know, that’s a decent chunk of our mortgage.
I was starting to mark time by the date of your show. I
reminded myself that November sounded a long way off, but November 1 is like
October 32 and it’s almost October. My buddy got his tickets. I listened to Yeezus on Spotify while I worked. I
listened to Kendrick Lamaar. I told all my friends on Facebook I was going — not
a huge response, but I was just so frickin’ excited!
Then I got an email from the ticket outlet about a week
after I got my tickets. At first I thought it was just an update. Something
about parking or a time change or whatever. Then I thought there was a problem
with my credit card. Then I clicked a link and finally saw a picture of you in
a red balaclava with “This event has been canceled” written across it. Your
eyes looked sorry.
I assume you canceled because sales weren’t going great at Energy
Solutions Arena. I get that. You put on a big show and that costs money. You
can probably tell, even just a week after tickets go on sale, about how many
people to expect at each date. I noticed you replaced SLC with another date in
California. I get that, too. Salt Lake doesn’t get a lot of rap shows and maybe
we don’t have a huge hip-hop crowd. I use “rap” and “hip hop” interchangeably,
for instance, which is probably obtuse. It’s usually half hip hoppers half
hippies at our rap shows. Salt Lake hippies just like to dance.
But maybe you should have thought about all that before you
announced a Salt Lake date! Better not to plan a show here at all than to get
my hopes up and pull the rug out, right? I’m not trying to tell you your
business. Touring looks like hard work and of course it's your prerogative to play when and where you choose. I just thought
you might be interested to know that it hurt.
Anyway, if it’s not too late, I want you to reconsider. I
want to make a case for Salt Lake City. Ticket sales aren’t everything, and here
are a few things you may not have thought of when you canceled:
Salt Lake City has great alternative venues. Even if you
weren’t going to fill Energy Solutions Arena, you could for sure sell out Kilby
Court. It’s hosted such acts as Tune-Yards, the Purr Bats, Laura Marling and
tons of hardworking local teens. It’s a smaller venue in an alley with a courtyard and a corrugated
fiberglass baffle behind the stage. The stage is really small and short, too,
and so you could get right out into the crowd without much inconvenience. Kilby
is a perfect analogy to Yeezus: spare,
gritty, lots of layers and intentionally off-putting. I had my wedding reception
there and the Christmas lights we strung in the trees are still there. I don’t
think they work anymore, but there are other decorations. I’m not sure if the
thing in Kilby is a furnace or a big space heater, but it works.
Which brings me to point number two: Salt Lake is cold in
November, which is perfect for you. I know you like clothes and I’ve paid
attention to your aesthetic. Layers. You like layers right now. And quilted
coats and boots. Perfect. I don’t know what you’re into hats-wise, but you’re
gonna want one and I bet you do a hat awesome.
Thirdly — and I know this is a big deal to you — we don’t
really have paparazzi here. (Speaking of which, sorry about that dust-up with
Ramos at LAX. But hey, you probably don’t mind having to stay 10 feet from him,
right?) There’s no TMZ office in Salt Lake. A couple photogs might make the
trek for Sundance or whatever, but that’s in January. Other than Sundance they
can’t be bothered. It wouldn’t be cost-effective. We’re in the middle of
about 25 states where celebrities don’t really go. You can have a nice quiet stay at a
downtown hotel at a reasonable rate. Bring your wife and daughter, if
you want. There’s tons of family-friendly stuff here.
Lastly, I think you’re going to be pleasantly surprised by
the Salt Lake’s culture. I sort of think we’re you’re people. (“We culture!”) You
might be able to have some very interesting conversations with local leaders of
the LDS Church. You sing, “I Am a God.” Mormons sing “I Am A Child of God.” We believe
that through faith and obedience to the teachings of Jesus, each of us can become like God and create our own worlds. Love
to see what sorts of production work you could do to put together “I Am A (Child
of) God.” Could be a huge fan favorite if you managed to slip that into an
encore or something. We could rustle up a backing choir on a moment’s notice.
It’s your call, of course.
LDS doctrine also accommodates an inborn urge to be better,
to be more, and to believe in one’s own incredible power and potential to enact
change. You have this urge and this self-confidence in spades, it seems. If you
reinstate your original tour date of Friday, November 1, you’d only need to
make it a long weekend to visit a local ward’s Sunday worship services and find
more common ground. If you can’t stay that long, we could send a couple of
representatives to meet with you on Friday and talk more.
Salt Lake’s a great place. “A hidden gem,” lots of
transplants say. Anyway, I hope I’ve given you some things to think about.
Maybe made your decision a bit harder. We’d love to have you. Either way, it’s
a great record. “Soon as I pull up and park the Benz, / We get this bitch shakin’ like Parkinson’s.” Ha! That kills me.
Sincerely,
Jake Wilhelmsen
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