Music

Kanye West's set ended abruptly at the Pan Am Games closing ceremony

by Jeremy Mersereau

Were those 54,000 naysayers right? Should we have gone with a Canadian artist to close the Pan Am Games last night instead of Kanye West? I mean, it’s not like Gordon Lightfoot’s schedule was jam-packed, probably. (For the record, we love Kanye and did not support the petition to ban him in any way.)

West performed a solid 13 minutes onstage at the ceremony, delivering an energetic medley of career-spanning hits like “Touch the Sky”, “Stronger” and “All of the Lights”, before tossing the mic into the air and walking off when the sound cut out during the final song. This left the packed Rogers Centre to sit there enjoying “The Good Life”‘s admittedly still pretty sick beat. Say what you will about Kanye’s talent, but when Gordon Lightfoot stomps off the stage because of technical issues, the “If You Could Read My Mind” instrumental doesn’t keep the crowd going.

Watch footage of the mic throw here:

It appears that a faulty microphone was the culprit for the technical issues, as TV viewers could hear it cut out intermittently throughout the performance.

Millbrook, Ontario’s own Serena Ryder started off the night with a performance of her Pan Anthem “Together We Are One”, with pop-rapper Pitbull following and delivering a set full of his trademark party bangers. What, people get riled up about Kanye but we can’t get a petition to exile Pitbull from Canada forever? What is wrong with this country? We can win 217 medals at the games, but we can’t get rid of Mr. Worldwide. Maybe 2019’s host city, Lima, can triumph where we faltered.