Concert Review: Kanye West performs at Mohegan Sun

UNCASVILLE _ In the end, it took an act of God to save Kanye West's performance at Mohegan Sun on Friday night. West performed a two hour show at the Connecticut casino as part of his current 'Yeezus' tour.

The show was a hot mess of incongruous motifs, monsters, mountains, and masks before a makeshift Jesus came to save the day. Although it came way to close to the end of the show, it at least signaled the end of West's far-reaching vision for marrying hip hop and high art.

The production was top-notch in some parts, amateurish in others. The music was a complete miss.

It may have been the biggest stage set up ever housed in Mohegan Sun's arena, a giant, jagged mountain at the front of the house, with a ledge-like precipice that extended to the back.

That stage was graced by a bevy of chorus girls that doubled as angels, sirens, or maybe zombies. They cavorted like concubines in flesh-colored body suits and marched like shrouded monks along the apron. Then they served as altar attendants, leading a stature of the Virgin Mary in a procession across the stage.

There were lasers, fireworks, and falling snow. There was a monster that huddled near the mountain peak for a song or two.

And there was Kanye West, masked and adrift on an under-lit stage. He switched masks between songs, going from full-facial fencing cage, to a 'Phantom of the Menace' look.

He sang almost exclusively through an Auto-Tune device which complimented his look with a robotic, synthesized sound.

West's shadowy profile took the stage to 'I'm Not Here' and segued into 'Blood on the Leaves.' The mask and the darkness were a huge distraction, as everyone was waiting for the 'reveal' that was still and hour and a half away.

There were glimpses of brilliance with 'Power' and 'Way Too Cold,' which sampled Foreigner's 'Cold As Ice.' The version of 'Can't Tell Me Nothing,' was crowd-sourced and communal.

Still, a deejay could have spun this show with the same results as the masked, synthesized West offered nothing to the live performance that was personal.

It was the character of Jesus, played by a tall man with a fake beard (with all the money spent on production, one would think they could do a better job with the introduction of a higher power), that convinced West to shed his mask and the filtered voice; and the real Kanye West was a show stopper.

From 'Jesus Walks' to 'All Fall Down' and 'Touch The Sky,' the man the audience could now see and hear (unfiltered) was an engaging, personable, hip hop star.

He wants to be more than that, telling the audience he has compared himself to Walt Disney and Steve Jobs because he looks up to them and doesn't want to be put in a box.

He accused the collective, evil 'they' of holding him back.

'You get famous for one thing and they hold you back from every other thing,' he said. 'I think the guy that made this stage could probably design a t-shirt.'