Kanye West and Lady Gaga's co-headlining FAME KILLS Tour has been canceled, according to a press release from tour promoter Live Nation. No reason was given for the cancellation.Rumors about the tour's possible cancellation have been swirling for days, largely related to the negative publicity stemming from West's interruption of Taylor Swift's acceptance speech at the 2009 MTV Video Music Awards last month. The tour, which West abruptly announced during a television appearance in the spring and was scheduled to launch on November 10 in Phoenix, was oddly not confirmed by either of the artists' reps until mid-September.
Just last week, Gaga revealed details about the tour during interviews with Las Vegas radio station KLUC and San Diego's Star 94.
She said the shows would feature an unusual stage that extended from one end of the arena floor to the other. "The stage is called a traverse," she said. "It's something that we designed together. Instead of being on just one end of the arena, the stage traverses the entire arena. It's not really in-the-round; it's more of a runway. ... [It extends] from one end to the other so the audience can see everywhere from 360, but it's like a rectangular runway shape".
"We're on each end of the stage, and I want to get to where Kanye is, which is 'the fame,' " she continued. "He wants to get where I am, which is home and humble beginnings. For the whole show, we are battling each other [for their positions]. It's been a really incredible creative experience".
"We did not do this tour for each other," she added. "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. He's going to play every Kanye West hit, which is a lot, one after the other. I'm going to play all my hit records which, knock on wood, I had a lot this year. And then I'm going to play all my new music and then do a ton of duets."
Asked about how she might be received by West's fans, she said she welcomes the potential to gain a whole new group of fans. "I make pop music and Kanye's fans love pop music because he has changed what hip-hop means. For me, the tour is more about just bringing people together and having a big dance party. The show is a celebration of creativity, art, fashion and choreography."
Gaga also opened up about West's dedication to his fans, and how working with him has broadened her creative horizons.
"He's really shown me a lot, as a friend — like creatively planning it with him," she said. "It's all about the fans for him. We were making the stage and he was like, 'We can't put these side panels here because if we [do], these people can't see and that's not fair. He was like, 'I'm not selling a ticket to a fan who can't see the show,' and he's right."
Gaga also revealed that she'll be launching her own headlining tour just weeks after FAME KILLS wraps. "When I come back from my world tour, I'm doing another world tour after this, which is going to be in March of next year."
And there you have it.
