Kanye West Revives Atlantic City's Revel With Weekend Concert Series
The weekend concert series is a major move for the year old $2.4 billion casino, which suffered major damage as a result of October’s Hurricane Sandy. Damages included flooding of the entire coastline as well as Revel’s private beach development, which was still under construction at the time. The waterfront city and America's second most visited gambling destination was rocked during the storm as one of the most heavily impacted New Jersey towns with statewide damages totaling more than $29 billion.
During the weekend’s opening night, Kanye brought life to the intimate yet, packed 5,500-seat auditorium. He opened the show with the G.O.O.D Music hit, “Way Too Cold” and made quite the fashion statement wearing “all white everything” complete with a fur Yeti mask, and later on an exclusive Fall 2012 Maison Martin Margiela crystal encrusted one.
The performance was set to the three-dimensional backdrop of snow-capped mountains and icebergs while a video projection on the floor gave the illusion that he was walking on water. The scene was one of the many extravagant backgrounds, which included pyrotechnics, shooting confetti and a full simulated snowfall on the crowd.
Sans any opening acts, special guests, or dancers, Kanye’s set went uninterrupted with him performing many hits from including, “Touch the Sky”, “Can’t Tell Me Nothing”, “All of the Lights” and “Heartless.”
For every moment of the 75-minute set Kanye managed to keep his fans captivated. Playing off of the Mayan calendar phenomenon, at one point he told the crowd, “When you leave you can tell people that the world ended and then you saw Kanye West perform.”
The Ovation Hall is a particularly special arena for Kanye. In July 2012, he held two sold-out shows in the venue and it’s now home to his only US shows since his 2011 appearance at the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival.
Following peformances of more of his own songs as well as features, he made sure to go back into the G.O.O.D Music hit album, "Cruel Summer," reciting the tracks, “Don’t Like” and summer anthem, “Mercy.”
Eventually, Kanye brought the show to a close with his classic, “All Falls Down” featuring R&B songstress Syleena Johnson. His final words: “That’s my show. I love y’all.” The perfect short and sweet ending to the beginning of an epic weekend.
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