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Kanye West, Lady GaGa To Tour

by Mariel Concepcion, N.Y.  |   September 16, 2009 4:43 EDT
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After crashing the stage during Taylor Swift's acceptance speech at the MTV Video Music Awards last weekend and numerous apologies for his outburst - stating he would "take some time off" to reflect - Kanye West will instead join Lady GaGa for the "Fame Kills" tour starting this fall.

But will the outburst hurt his ticket sales?

"I think this could potentially affect his upcoming tour with Lady GaGa," says a program director for a major urban mainstream radio station who chose to remain anonymous. "This isn't an urban tour -- urban audiences can be a bit more forgiving than mainstream audiences are. I can see him going on stage and people booing him. It's unfortunate."

But according to Violet Brown, Director of Urban Music at Trans World Entertainment, West -- who had the third highest grossing hip-hop tour Billboard has ever tracked last year with $30 million -- still has the potential to pull similar numbers on his upcoming trek. "His future sales will be all up to delivering amazing new songs and how he handles himself going forward," says Brown. "If he cleans up his act and delivers hot music, he should be ok. I truly hope that he is able to bounce back because our business needs the revenue."

Ebro Darden, Program Director for New York radio station Hot 97 (WQHT) agrees, stating "people who genuinely like Kanye won't be affected. Tickets for his GaGa tour go on sale in a few days and I'm sure people will be in the building."

Live Nation, the tour's promoter, declined to comment for this story, while reps for both Lady GaGa and Kanye West were unavailable as of press time.

The "Fame Kills" tour dates are:


Nov. 10: Phoenix, AZ (US Airways Center)
Nov. 11: San Diego, CA (Vegas Arena)
Nov. 13: Las Vegas, NV (Madalay Bay Events Center)
Nov. 15: Anaheim, CA (Honda Center)
Nov. 16: Los Angeles, CA (Staples Center)
Nov. 18: Sacramento, CA (ARCO Arena)
Nov. 19: San Jose, CA (HP Pavilion)
Nov. 24: Vancouver, BC (General Motors Place)
Nov. 26: Calgary, AB (Pengrowth Saddledome)
Nov. 28: Edmonton, AB (Rexall Place)
Nov. 29: Saskatoon, SK (Credit Union Centre)
Dec. 2: Denver, CO (Pepsi Center)
Dec. 4: St. Louis, MO (Scottrade Center)
Dec. 9: Miami, FL (American Airlines Arena)
Dec. 11: Atlanta, GA (Philips Arena)
Dec. 12: Greensboro, NC (Greensboro Coliseum Complex)
Dec. 13: Norfolk, VA (Scope)
Dec. 16: Worcester, MA (DCU Center)
Dec. 18: Philadelphia, PA (Wachovia Center)
Dec. 19: Baltimore, MD (1st Mariner Arena)
Dec. 20: Buffalo, NY (HSBC Arena)
Dec. 22: E. Rutherford, NJ (IZOD Center)
Dec. 26: Hartford, CT (XL Center)
Dec. 30: Washington, DC (Verizon Center)
Jan. 3: Uniondale, NY (Nassau Coliseum)
Jan. 6: Toronto, ON (Air Canada Centre)
Jan. 8: Kanata, ON(Scotiabank Place)
Jan. 11: Montreal, QC (Bell Centre)
Jan. 14: Auburn Hills, MI (Palace of Auburn Hills)
Jan. 16: Chicago, IL (United Center)
Jan. 19: New Orleans, LA (New Orleans Arena)
Jan. 21: San Antonio, TX (AT&T Center)
Jan. 22: Houston, TX (Toyota Center)
Jan. 24: Dallas, TX (American Airlines Center)

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