Damn I really wish I could hit this tour up, but times are hard with gas being damn near $4/gallon and all. It’s too late to get good seats now, anyway. I guess I’ll have to settle for the photos and youtube videos. ((Sigh))

The hip-hop star may or may not have been thinking about Richard Wagner’s epic Ring cycle when he decided to turn his Glow in the Dark tour into an apocalyptic space opera. The show, which premiered Wednesday at this city’s Key Arena, had more obvious reference points: Japanese anime, Will Smith in “I Am Legend” and any Imax shows about the planets that West might have seen as a kid.

But West, the chart-topper most determined to burn his likeness into the walls of pop’s Valhalla, cares deeply about what it means to be a hero. Wednesday, he didn’t take a spear to the gut the way Wagner’s Siegfried did, but he did confront terror, doubt and filial grief in a show that carried his braggadocio into the realm of myth itself.

Performing a set of favorites from throughout his repertoire, West moved like a dancer in a Gene Kelly movie on a slanted stage made to look like a distant moon.

CLICK HERE TO READ THE ENTIRE REVIEW!