The Fame Kills Starring Kanye West and Lady Gaga

Fame Kills: Starring Lady Gaga and Kanye West, also known as The Lady Gaga/Kanye West Tour, was a scheduled 2009-2010 tour featuring Lady Gaga and Kanye West. After the tour, Gaga was scheduled to start her second world tour in early February of 2010. Shortly after the cancellation in October of 2009, Gaga embarked on her own tour, The Monster Ball Tour, while West took a break from his career to produce My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy.

Background

5-3-09 NYC 004 — Kid Cudi, Kanye West and Gaga on May 3, 2009.

In May of 2009, during an interview with Edmonton Sun, Gaga declared plans for a bigger North American tour including Canada. Gaga explained that the show is supposed to be much bigger than the previous version. She was referring to Fame Kills which was cancelled and replaced by The Monster Ball. Prior to being the Creative Director of the Haus of Gaga, Matthew Williams worked with Kanye since 2007. Although unconfirmed, he might have been the initial connexion between the two artists. Gaga was first seen with Kanye at DJ Reflex's Birthday Party on March 11, 2009.

Development

Gaga said the shows would feature an unusual stage that extended from one end of the arena floor to the other. "The stage is called a traverse," she said. "It's something that we designed together. Instead of being on just one end of the arena, the stage traverses the entire arena. It's not really in-the-round; it's more of a runway. ... [It extends] from one end to the other so the audience can see everywhere from 360, but it's like a rectangular runway shape.

"We're on each end of the stage, and I want to get to where Kanye is, which is 'the fame,' " she continued. "He wants to get where I am, which is home and humble beginnings. For the whole show, we are battling each other [for their positions]. It's been a really incredible creative experience.

"We did not do this tour for each other," she added. "We did this tour for everybody else. We wanted to do something that no one has ever seen. We wanted our fans to feel like we were doing something special and we wanted to merge two groups of fans — two different [groups of] music lovers into one room. He's going to play every Kanye West hit, which is a lot, one after the other. I'm going to play all my hit records which, knock on wood, I had a lot this year. And then I'm going to play all my new music and then do a ton of duets."

Cancellation

On October 1, 2009, the tour's promoter released a statement announcing that the tour was officially cancelled. Gaga's choreographer, Laurie-Ann Gibson, Tweeted that it was due to "creative differences" - but she did not elaborate further. "It was a mutual decision," Gaga said as she arrived for the Billboard Women in Music Event, where she is receiving this years Rising Star Award. "Kanye's going to take some time off. But the good news is that I'm going on tour in a few weeks." Many of the crew hired for the tour were kept for The Monster Ball including musical director Jeff Bhasker, lightning director Ethan Weber, set designer Es Devlin and costume designer Zaldy.

Dates

The tour was 35 shows accross America and Canada starting in November into the end of January, 2010.

Date	City	Country	Venue
North America
November 10, 2009	Phoenix	United States	US Airways Center
November 11, 2009	San Diego		San Diego Sports Arena
November 13, 2009	Las Vegas		Mandalay Bay Events Center
November 15, 2009	Anaheim		Honda Center
November 16, 2009	Los Angeles		Staples Center
November 18, 2009	Sacramento		ARCO Arena
November 19, 2009	San Jose		HP Pavilion
November 24, 2009	Vancouver	Canada	General Motors Place
November 26, 2009	Calgary		Pengrowth Saddledome
November 28, 2009	Edmonton		Rexall Place
November 29, 2009	Saskatoon		Credit Union Centre
December 2, 2009	Denver	United States	Pepsi Center
December 4, 2009	St. Louis		Scottrade Center
December 9, 2009	Miami		American Airlines Arena
December 11, 2009	Atlanta		Philips Arena
December 12, 2009	Greensboro		Greensboro Coliseum
December 13, 2009	Norfolk		Scope Arena
December 16, 2009	Worcester		DCU Center
December 18, 2009	Philadelphia		Wachovia Center
December 19, 2009	Baltimore		1st Mariner Arena
December 20, 2009	Buffalo		HSBC Arena
December 22, 2009	East Rutherford		IZOD Center
December 23, 2009	Cleveland, OH		Quicken Loans Arena
December 26, 2009	Hartford		XL Center
December 30, 2009	Washington, D.C.		Verizon Center
January 3, 2010	Uniondale		Nassau Coliseum
January 6, 2010	Toronto	Canada	Air Canada Centre
January 8, 2010	Ottawa		Scotiabank Place
January 11, 2010	Montreal		Bell Center
January 14, 2010	Auburn Hills	United States	Palace of Auburn Hills
January 16, 2010	Chicago		United Center
January 19, 2010	New Orleans		New Orleans Arena
January 21, 2010	San Antonio		AT&T Center
January 22, 2010	Houston		Toyota Center
January 24, 2010	Dallas		American Airlines Center

Promotion

A short video was released to promote the tour around September of 2009. The footage of the video came from the photo shoot they did together with David LaChapelle. Monsters sounds are played during the video and Kanye says "Fame Kills" at the end of it. The picture they did was released for the first time inside the Book of Gaga. The poster for the tour was taken by photographer Hanna Liden at Milk Studios but was never released.