Anyone who was hoping to pay to hear the “Vultures” album played back in an arena in the near future may be out of luck. The next round of “listening sessions” with Kanye West, aka Ye, and Ty Dolla Sign for the album project has been called off, as the arenas that were scheduled to host the next round of large-scale playbacks in April announced over the weekend that the dates were canceled or otherwise quietly pulled the plug.
The canceled gigs had been scheduled for arenas in Tampa, Fort Lauderdale, Pittsburgh, Nashville, Charlotte and Washington, D.C. The shows were scrapped within a day or two of first being announced.
A rep for Ye confirmed to PvNew that the shows are not proceeding.
There was no immediate word on the cancellations from Ye himself, who apparently deactivated his Instagram account over the weekend.
The show cancellations come in the wake of mostly negative feedback over Ye and Ty’s opening-night gig at the Rolling Loud Festival in Inglewood, Calif., in which a set that was promised to consist of at least some live performance turned out to be another rolling of the “Vultures 1” tapes, with the two stars standing by on stage while wearing masks. No new material was premiered at the Rolling Loud playback.
The April gigs were being promoted as a “Vultures 1 & 2 Listening Experience.” But there has been no recent sign that the “Vultures 2” album is still on the way, even though the sequel was originally announced for a March 8 release. In recent weeks, Ye had put up Instagram posts indicating that he was toying with the idea of releasing “Vultures 2” only as a paid download, or through a new and exclusive streaming site, rather than a conventional rollout to DSPs.
The shows had been announced for Nashville April 7 at Bridgestone Arena, Pittsburgh April 9 at PPG Paints Arena, Washington, D.C. April 11 at Capital One Arena, Tampa April 14 at Amalie Arena, and Charlotte April 12 at Spectrum Center.
Some of the shows were not scheduled to go on sale until this week, while others had already begun ticketing. One social media user posted an email exchange with a rep for the D.C. venue which indicated that tickets had already been purchased and a refund would be issued. As of this writing, SeatGeek and StubHub still show hundreds of active listings for resale tickets for the performances.
The Ticketmaster page for Ye currently shows no concerts listed. The Florida arenas post posted messages saying: “We regret to report that due to the time constraints for Ye and Ty Dolla $ign to curate production and meet logistic requirements, the upcoming dates for the VULTURES 1&2 listening experience will need to be revisited at a later date.” A rep for the Charlotte venue told the Clture website that the gig was off.
In the wake of the seeming broken promises about the Rolling Loud gig including live performance, the latest material for the “Vultures” gigs appeared to be careful about what was being promised. Before the page was removed, a listing for the “Vultures” event on the Nashville Bridgestone Arena website described it as “a hi-fidelity audio experience.”
In an interview with Big Boy that ran just after the Rolling Loud controversy, Ty Dolla Sign defended not performing at the arena-sized playback parties, maintaining, “It’s still better than other people’s shows that have a mic.”
