Kid Cudi / Keys N Krates
Kool Haus, Toronto, ON November 28
By Kevin Jones

(Published in Exclaim! Magazine)

While the job of critic is to fairly and honestly pull apart a subject, pointing out both the good and the bad to give readers a complete picture, one must also be prepared to admit that some things are simply above critique. The recent sold-out Kid Cudi show at Toronto’s Kool Haus may have been one such instance.

As concerts go, the night was any cantankerous critic’s wet dream, with fodder popping up at every turn, from a sound system that left the artists’ vocals almost unintelligible, to the one-and-a-half-hour wait between solid openers Keys N Krates and the headliner, essentially killing the show’s early momentum. The shower of boos and cries for refunds that ensued would have led most to believe the packed warehouse was just waiting to take it to Cudi’s face, but the moment the spaceman finally did take the stage, all was forgiven and forgotten as the room sang each cut word for word, from the opening “Already Home” to the closing “Cudi Zone.”
The crowd’s love for the “Day ‘n’ Nite” singer even surpassed that showed to surprise guest Drake, who met the screw-face capital with one of his own before busting into “Forever” to unified jubilation.

Of course, none of this meant that the rest of the night made for a dream show, but it did raise some questions about validity of a nitpicking critique. For instance, does it matter that a man stood right beside Cudi’s “DJ” the entire night, offering selection support, snatching camera-phone pics, or simply texting someone clearly more important than the event going on around him? Or that the three-man team brought the show to a grinding halt after every other track to decide their next move, and that a man who can barely sing thought it wise to drop two a cappellas? And does it matter that the rebellious Cudi baited the crowd with such inspiring pronouncements as “Cudi really don’t give a fuck (about the industry) — I wear what I wanna wear”?

The answer to all of these questions is, frankly, not one bit, because true Cudi fans showed up that night not just to watch their man, but to be as much a part of his performance as he was. While it’s certainly fair to question their standards (they made walls shake to the chants of “no-no-no-no-no-no-no—YEAH!…” after all), a proper critique, much like one posed of a McDonalds meal, would be a complete waste of time.