“What makes this night so special is that it’s about y’all and the way you feel: This is a representation of that feeling.” Feelings were indeed front and center at Kanye West’s Saint Pablo Tour in San Jose last night, an emotional, visual, aural rollercoaster ride that lasted nearly three hours and could’ve gone on longer if the audience hadn’t been on the brink of rioting.

Not only did Kanye feel like Pablo, he also left the audience feeling all ten stages of grief over the course of his hour-long spoken word performance/tirade/slam-poetry session about Donald Trump, education, race in America, internet echo chambers, and, of course, himself. While shoes, hats, and other articles of clothing were thrown at West from the raucous pit that churned below his floating stage—partly a representation of the audience’s feelings last night—fans were also wilding out at the raw energy, passion and creative ingenuity he brought to his off-the-wall, one-man show.

You have to give it to Kanye for being Kanye. He spent the evening floating above an audience, tethered to a tilting stage that showered fans below in gold, orange and yellow lights—reminiscent of a scene out of a Philip K. Dick novel or a George Miller film. Beginning the show with “Father Stretch My Hands Pt. 1” the self-proclaimed modern-day Einstein led the audience through a few of his hits from his latest, post-physical-release LP, The Life of Pablo album, stopping repeatedly to comment on the country’s current political climate and revealing that he didn’t vote but if he had, it would’ve been for Donald Trump.

As the audience began booing in anger, Kanye persisted that he wasn’t asking their opinion on who should have won, but was simply stating that he did win, despite everyone’s confident predictions that he would lose in a landslide, and questioned that false confidence.

“Don’t believe that just because the media doesn’t like the headline, there aren’t enough people out there who do believe it,” West said. “For everything you might not like, there’s another human being right next to you who might like that shit. You might not like what you’re hearing right now, but I’m just gonna ask you to ask more questions.”

Unfortunately, Kanye’s constant interjections and interruptions didn’t allow for a cohesive flow of songs, or even any semblance of his recorded work to be fully enjoyed. When he wasn’t skipping songs altogether—“skip that track, next one”—he was bringing the audience’s energy from zero to one hundred real quick, starting a verse, stopping after the first line, talking extensively, then starting the song over again. For “Freestyle 4,” Kanye repeated the first verse three times, stopping before every chorus to shed light on racism or Donald Trump’s campaign genius and then skipped the song altogether.

BIG BROTHER: Yeezy urged the crowd to stop believing everything they read on the web. Photo by Greg Ramar.

He did try to end the performance on a strong note, singing hits like “Runaway,” “Stronger,” “Touch the Sky” and ultimately ending with “Ultralight Beam.” It wouldn’t be true to form if he didn’t stop in the middle of the booming gospel choral outtro for “Ultralight” to leave the audience with one last bit of wisdom: “This world is racist, OK? Let’s stop being distracted to focus on that as much. It’s just a fucking fact: We are in a racist country, period. Do not allow people to make us talk about that so fucking long. Let’s talk about whatever the fuck we wanna talk about, just stop fucking talking about that, bro.”

Kanye West said it best last night: “You are fooled by the information on the mother fucking internet, bro!”

As news outlets across the globe will report on his outlandish claims today, we have to consider last night’s performance in the context of Kanye West—one of the few celebrities on the planet with the chops to go head-to-head with Trump in a troll-off.

Ye has been saying outlandish things in the interest of making headlines for the majority of his career. Did he really believe that George W. Bush didn’t care about African Americans? Does he actually fancy himself a god among mortals? Would he really have cast a vote for Trump?

Perhaps these are the wrong questions to be asking—at least when it comes to last night’s show.

In an era in which the truth has become a matter of opinion—thanks to the social media bubbles we actively choose to live within—perhaps all that counts is that West has managed to go viral with his antics yet again. There is at least one man out there who can attest to the virtues of viral content. And come Inauguration Day, that man will be taking the oath of office.

Check out photos by Greg Ramar from last night’s show below:

Photo by Greg Ramar.

Photo by Greg Ramar.

Photo by Greg Ramar.

Photo by Greg Ramar.

Photo by Greg Ramar.

Photo by Greg Ramar.

Click here for the full gallery.

Listen to “Ultralight Beam” below:

Alongside Nicki Minaj, Taylor Swift and Beyonce, Rihanna sits atop the modern Mount Rushmore of American pop songstresses. But unlike the obsessively manicured images of her competition, there’s always been an ineffable realness to Rihanna—a steamy brashness that hasn’t waned in her inevitable, steady rise to stardom.

On Friday, at the SAP Center, she emerged to a tsunami of piercing squeals while striding to an isolated platform. She wore a veiled hood, a silk one-piece and beige suede boots that stopped at her hip bones, then opened with the plodding piano ballad, “Stay.” Standing alone with a microphone, she let her pleads breathe with subtle rock-back shoulder-shakes, then frayed the edges of her powerhouse crescendo with an unafraid desperation.

She boarded a plexiglass catwalk that descended from the rafters, stomping, shimmying and striding like a panther while she pulled off the line “Sex with me/So amazing”—her dripping charisma leaving no other conceivable possibility.

She’s the most stunning human being I’ve ever seen. She smolders unceasingly with a naughtiness that feels somehow important—like a duchess in a wet T-shirt contest. Just a lilt of her shoulder, or a bite of her lip or a wave of her bold eyebrows packs a metric ton of nuclear lust.

And sure, her looks suit the Instagram era, but Rihanna proved she could have been any number of artists on an all-white stage with a live band, a chromey jumbotron square and swirling purple and peach lights.

She showcased her sneering side with “Bitch, Better Have My Money,” curling her upper lip and spitting hard bars over rat-a-tatting snares with legitimate menace. She bounced through “Live Your Life,” strutted to “Run This Town,” warbled “Take Care” and skipped through “All of the Lights,” tacitly gloating at her starry resume of featured hooks on the biggest hits of mega-rappers.

She reminded us of her career-solidifying international hit, “Umbrella,” before getting stitched into a nude bodysuit and diving into “Desperado,” an outlaw rock cut that would perfectly score the opening credits of a James Bond flick.

On “Rude Boy,” she wielded her sexuality like a two-handed broadsword in a confrontational challenge to a prospective lover. And in a diamond-studded black lace romper, she paired body-rolling and swivel-twerking with the pitter-patter of deconstructed dancehall drums on “Work” as she slurred through the choppy hook that melts into incoherent catchiness.

She proved she could have been an airy EDM diva when she back-to-backed “Love In A Hopeless Place” and “Where Have You Been.” Then she channelled electro-soulfulness over the deep robo-huffs and wood-on-wood clacks of “Needed Me,” before pivoting into show-stopping songstress mode—requesting that everyone activate their phone lights, which lit up the entire stadium with the blue light of a full moon as she uncorked her dreamy ode, “Diamonds.”

She thanked us for being “so fucking lit,” then belted “FourFiveSeconds,” the McCartney-melodized minimalist ditty about surviving work weeks. She embodied a Janis-Joplin-adjacent energy and scraped depths of longing during the hypnotic neo-motown ballad “Love on the Brain.” Finally, she slung the mic stand behind her neck and purred “Kiss It Better”—imbuing the rough yearn for make-up sex with a galactic gravity.

To close, her band riffed something funky and she walked around the stage, blowing kisses to fans for minutes—completing her transformation from post-human demigod to grateful lady who is very good at her job. She faux-conducted her musicians, gave a couple concluding shimmies then hit the dab twice before descending into the floor.

Her crackling intensity could have thrived in any era. She combines effortless eroticism with transcendent talent and the vibe of your friend’s older sister who lets you smoke her pot—reveling in her messiness as she lays our most primal longings unapologetically bare.

In The Picture of Dorian Gray, the title character retains eternal youth because a painting absorbs all the negative affects of his aging. Madonna must have one of those locked away in a Calabasas Kabbalah Center. She’s nothing short of a demi-god. And last night, during her appearance at the SAP Center, every single walk of life came to worship at her phallic altar.

Attendees of this stop on her Rebel Heart Tour included: Thots in hitched-up one-pieces, three generations of selfie-snappers, wholesome nuclear families, Duck Dynasty look-alikes, Russian/Vietnamese/Spanish-speakers, leather lovers, trim cougars in slinky dresses, Material girls (and women), and tons and tons of well-groomed men.

EDM-er Michael Diamond opened for Madonna, composing an hour and a half of chest filling deep house laced with disembodied hip-hop samples. The demure cotton-topped couple next to me endured him politely with a game of Words with Friends.

The trendy opener reflected Madonna’s constant reinvention, tracked by fan-worn tour T-shirts ranging from the curvy, bushy-browed beauty of yore to the polished avatar of sex that she is now. She refuses to stagnate, refuses to fade. She only ever adds new dimensions to her dodecahedron self. She incorporates whatever the kids are doing and makes it her own. And does it just as well, if not better. Miley Cyrus copies Madonna. But Madonna also copies Miley Cyrus.

The Queen of Pop opened with a monologue about having tits and an ass and an insatiable desire to be noticed. Then she led a tightly choreographed rebellion against an army of templars that seemed like they had been plucked from a dystopian novel where Ancient China and Egypt had been smushed together.

Her eyeliner flared at the corner. Her high cheekbones absorbed golden light. Her arms rippled with muscle. Her dirty blonde hair flowed long in a wild mane. Her smoky blue eyes radiated a persistent sexuality. Her maraschino cherry red lips pouted. Her diminutive height disappeared above Dikembe-Mutombo-middle-finger-sized stilettos. Her forehead flushed, but didn’t leak one bead of sweat down her angular marble-smooth face.

She stood astride a pole-swirling stripper like a surfboard and spanked a dancer 15 times for dropping a maraca. She forcefully groped and got groped back, drew attention to how “penisy” the heart-shaped tip of her thrust stage looked, humped any surface offered to her, and presided over a simulated man-on-man sex scene, a gyrating topless transwoman, and an androgyne clad half in a tuxedo and half in a shimmery flapper dress.

She said the word “fuck,” a lot.

Skipping about the stage, she flung her hair into a messy mane during “Like A Virgin,” and thumb-strummed a ukulele alone, while crooning “La Vie en Rose.” She flung tuxedoed suitors down a raked platform during a futurized rendition of “Material Girl.” During “Burning Up,” she whipped out a Flying-V guitar, dropped to her knees and shredded. She moved from channeling Mariachi’s mojo in “Who’s that Girl,” to twerking cat-walking and sneering to “Bitch, I’m Madonna.” She warbled over military drums for “Heartbreak City,” then draped herself in an American flag for her encore, “Holiday.”

Finally, she ascended into the sky because where else could she go?

Despite the unblinking admiration of the jam-packed SAP Center, Madonna exists on an unreachable, astral plane—far removed from our mundane reality. She is an alien-envisioned ideal of a popstar. Hillary Clinton frequently came to mind.

But I think that’s the point. Madonna isn’t supposed to be like us. She doesn’t age, she merely levels up—reincarnates without dying. And this is why legions worship her. Because unlike all other things that wither, she preserves. She’s a constant in a world of relentless flux. She’s a beacon of immortality. Bitch, she’s Madonna.