19 Times We Should've Stopped Chasing Kanye West Around New York City Last Night

At 12:34 a.m. on Monday, I took a cab from Brooklyn to a venue called Webster Hall on 11th Street in Manhattan. I was hoping to see a spontaneous 2 a.m. Kanye West show, announced on social media by a member of his crew, Virgil Abloh, after 'Ye's Governors Ball headlining set was canceled due to weather.

At 3:34 a.m. I watched Travis Scott do "Uber Everywhere" and the new song "Pick Up the Phone" at a small club called SOB's while 2 Chainz looked on from a few feet away.

That was pretty much the night. I did not see Kanye perform The Life of Pablo. No one did, even though thousands tried.

It was worth a shot, though. Whole-album concerts are my holiest grails, and TLOP rules, and my FOMO was never deeper than when Yeezy did all of My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy at a secret show in NYC in 2010, and I missed those 808s & Heartbreak concerts last year. For some reason, two hours' advance notice on this situation just seemed like a decent jump.

From the moment I arrived to find a barricaded block and a roundabout stampede to the end of the line—when it still was a line, not just a stoop-to-stoop glob of humanity—there were so many times I should have given up. But because I'm lucky enough to have this job, and because my editor (who was cool with this silly quest!) got me on a guest list (there was actually a guest list!), I stayed.