Looking Back at Gaga and Kanye’s ‘Fame Kills’ Tour 10 Years Later

[BUtterfield 8 38,357]

With Gaga fresh off the success of her debut album, ‘The Fame,’ and Westreleasing his pop-friendly project ‘808s and Heartbreak,’ the “Fame Kills” tour was set up to be one of the hottest music events of 2009 and perhaps even the decade. The tour was unexpectedly cancelled just a week after tickets went on sale due to a mutual decision between the two artists, Gaga said, though the reasoning behind the cancellation remains murky 10 years later.

The “Fame Kills” tour was scheduled to run 34 shows from November 10th, 2009 to January 24th, 2010. Gaga and Kanyeremaining as co-headliners was an essential component of the tour for both artists. In an interview with OUT magazine, Gaga said she laid out ground rules for Kanye regarding the tour’s audience:

“I just want to be clear before we decide to do this together: I’m gay. My music is gay. My show is gay. And I love that it’s gay. And I love my gay fans and they’re all going to be coming to our shows. And it’s going to remain gay.”

Details around the tour’s production design revealed that the concert would be its own unique entity not tied down to any of Gaga and Kanye’s previous work. Both artists worked together to design a rectangular “runway-shaped” stage that would traverse the entire arena, Gaga told a Las Vegas radio station in 2009. The stage’s runway design would have played a key role in the theme of “Fame Kills.”

“We did not do this tour for each other. We did this tour for everybody else. We wanted to do something that no one has ever seen. We wanted our fans to feel like we were doing something special and we wanted to merge two groups of fans – two different groups of music lovers into one room.”

The “Fame Kills” tour saw its first signs of cancellation following Kanye’s now infamous 2009 VMA incident with Taylor Swift, in which the rapper stormed the stage after Swift won Best Music Video to say Beyonce deserved the award. Rumors that the tour would end began to circulate in the days following before an official press release announced its cancellation on October 1st.

A clear explanation as to why the tour was cancelled has yet to be determined. Some believe it had to do with financing (tickets reportedly started at $150), as TMZ reported that sales “sucked” following the Kanye/Taylor VMA fiasco. TMZ also claimed that Gaga and West’s people were “at each other’s throats.”

Gaga never confirmed these rumors to be true, and instead insisted that the cancellation was a mutual decision between her and Kanye. “I didn’t drop Kanye,” Gaga said in an interview with Sirius XM. “When you’re really friends with somebody, you make difficult decisions, and we made a very difficult decision. It was hard on both of us.”

https://www.popcravenews.com/looking-back-at-gaga-and-kanyes-fame-kills-tour-10-years-later/

[Infinity Wave 7,617]

Cancelling this tour was the BEST decision in her carreer!

I mean  we got the MBT which launched her carreer way higher and gave us the Gaga we all love and stan!

[Fingerella 3,170]

Glad it didn’t happen. This sounds like it would’ve been a huge mess.

[ElectricKing 9,405]

I literally can't believe they were gonna go on tour, their demographics are COMPLETELY different - and whilst I'm all about bringing people together, I couldn't see this ending pretty.

[LaLa 18,569]

I do sometimes wish we could have seen this play out, I bet it would have been CRAZY. The chaotic energy involved  

But in the long run for sure it's better that it didn't happen. Life without the Monster Ball? Tragic. 

[Glamourpuss 29,062]

At the time it sounded like it was going to be something amazing.

But I'm so glad it didn't happen for obvious reasons. 

[Regina George 59,387]

I don’t know what replies above are all about but this tour was something that would be iconic. Concept is everything and that would probably be the biggest tour ever. I’m not Kanye fan but this tour is something that I wish I had opportunity to see. I saw video of Gaga performing Heartless and I could only imagine how that would sound on this tour. 

 

[TEANUS 11,180]

Just imagine this show though 

Both are such visionaries that it would have been a visual spectacular for sure. I still think Gaga would’ve embarked on her own Monster Ball Tour following the conclusion of Fame Kills starting in Europe in February/ March 2010 like she did with the Monster Ball 2.0, so we still would’ve gotten TMB

[Marilyn MonHoe 8,203]

26 minutes ago, Rainbow1 said:

“I just want to be clear before we decide to do this together: I’m gay. My music is gay. My show is gay. And I love that it’s gay. And I love my gay fans and they’re all going to be coming to our shows. And it’s going to remain gay.”

Me before I meet up with my Grindr date 

Spoiler

Aka @Hades 

 

[holy scheisse 20,310]

Would've really impacted the course of her career, I think? Could've had more rap/hip hop influence in her music following the paper gangsta sound, maybe turned out a Kanye collab, gained a spotlight with a totally different audience than what she had. I remember kid Cudi who I LOVE opened for her when I saw her, but I couldn't even imagine that nowadays lol.

But, alas, she chose her own lane and solidified her fan base  proud to be here

[Didymus 32,745]

I would've lived for this tbh.

[mr.peter 3,515]

I Still have my ticket stub for this show 

[LordEnigma 11,313]

It would be cool if this was just a few dates - I wonder how her career would have played out after this? I'm sure they would have collabed

[mauvais 0]

Their paths obviously diverged for the better but the Fame Kills tour made complete sense in 2009. It was before TFM and MBDTF when they really came into their own and I distinctly remember I wanted to go to their show despite not necessarily loving either of them because the concept was that cool. I think the fact that Matt worked for Kanye before Gaga and returned to Kanye afterwards says a lot in terms of shared aesthetics, fanbases, etc at the time. 

I mean look at how he described 808s & Heartbreak

'I've created a new genre for myself called "pop art",' he continues. 'I know they have that genre of visual art but they don't have it in music. Either call it "pop" or "pop art", either one I'm good with.'

[Elizabeth 450]

Like 90% of me is glad this didn't happen because we wouldn't have had the Monster Ball, which was truly and iconic show...but then there is that 10% of me which wishes it happened because I think Gaga and Kanye live together would've been epic.