Kanye West Earns Haters at Bonnaroo

Bonnaroo is a festival famous for bringing an eclectic line-up to a traditionally hippie-ish crowd, and the crowd is famous for embracing all of it (from Lily Allen to Tool), however one thing is for sure: Bonnaroo did not take kindly to Kanye West. Perhaps the only performer to get massively booed, West started his show nearly two hours late, at 4:30 in the morning.

Most surprising was Sunday's aftermath: it's an extremely rare occurrence that artists at Bonnaroo express negative remarks onstage, unless directed towards President Bush. Yet, several acts commented on West's poor performance, eliciting additional boo's from the crowd. Robert Randolph led a "F--- Kanye!" chant which was enthusiastically embraced. Broken Social Scene referred to a pause in their show (due to equipment problems) as their "Kanye moment." And Rogue Wave promised fans that they would never leave them waiting in a field until 4:30 AM out of respect for their audience. Anytime an artist (such as O.A.R.) mentioned West by name, from stage, it was met with a round of boo's.

Days before the festival, West insisted that his set would be moved to the main stage and rescheduled for late-night so the crowd would get the full effect of his 'Glow in the Dark' production. Shortly after he finally came onstage, ironically to 'Good Morning,' the sun began to rise, negating all the fancy lights (which were nothing compared to Daft Punk or Roger Waters) and revealing the faces of thousands of un-amused music fans. By that time, most of the crowd had already left, disappointed.

Allegedly, there was an altercation backstage between Pearl Jam's crew and West's, in addition to everything else. During the delay, fans booed and threw bottles and glow sticks at the stage, one of which hit West's main centerpiece screen, damaging it for the entire performance (and, very likely, permanently). As this crowd would phrase it: It's called karma, bro.

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