I watched Kanye and Kevin Durant’s NBA All-Star Weekend concert from the dog park

By random chance, an NYC dog park essentially became a police-secured VIP area for a Kanye concert. I was there. My dog hated it.

by Rodger Sherman

Feb 13, 2015, 2:40 PM UTC

Kanye West, Pusha T, 2 Chainz, and Big Sean are rapping “Mercy” on stage, and I’m watching a dalmatian fight over a small tennis ball with a particularly fluffy shepherd-mix looking dog with a silly black patch over its left eye. “Dogs” and “Kanye West” each register among my favorite 25 things in the world -- I’d guess No. 2 and No. 17 -- so this is a reasonable estimation of what I would like heaven to be like.

The event is the first annual Roc City Classic. With the NBA All-Star Game being held in New York, Jay-Z’s rap label/sports agency Roc Nation decided to show off how cool it is that they have a rap label/sports agency with a blowout concert featuring Kanye and hosted by Kevin Durant. To do this, the NYPD shut down several major streets in the middle of midtown Manhattan and build a large stage right outside of Madison Square Park, across from the Flatiron Building.

This event could bring in millions, but instead, it’s free. Tickets to the area in front of the stage are given out via various contests, but I don’t win any.

However, there’s a loophole. When I visit my parents who live in Manhattan, I take my dog, a 1.5-year-old beagle named Laz, to a puppy park on the west side of Madison Square Park. If that dog park is open, I should be able to see Kanye from pretty close without tickets.

Sure enough, when I get there, the majority of the area surrounding Kanye’s stage is cordoned off or blocked by the police. And because this is New York and New Yorkers swarm to any free thing, there are thousands of people without tickets pressed up to the police barricades at the closest possible location they can.

They’re pressed up against the dog park gate, but oddly, not inside it. I open the doors at let my dog run around. Some people wise up and realize they can get about 50 feet closer to the stage by sneaking into the dog park. However, after a few minutes, a cop comes by and tells them that if they don’t have dogs, they have to get out of the dog park.

This is essentially a police-mandated VIP area at a Kanye show for dog owners.

“Sometimes, I feel like we treat dogs better than we treat people!”, a lady with a pit bull named Jake says to me. (I don’t catch her name, because nobody at any dog park knows anybody else’s name. Just dogs names.)

After a flack speech by some Roc Nation suit, Kevin Durant and Skylar Diggins say hi for a few minutes. NYC DJ Angie Martinez comes out, and says she’s stalling for Kanye. “BROOKLYN IN THE HOUSE?” she yells. “BX IN THE HOUSE?” Somebody yells out “DOG PARK IN THE HOUSE!”

Eventually Kanye comes out, joined by several labelmates. He performs mainly off “Yeezus” and “Cruel Summer.” I can’t see Kanye very well, so I focus on these dogs having a great time while Kanye performs.

However, one dog is distinctly not having a good time.

Laz got freaked out as soon as the loud noises started happening. She ran to the furthest part of the park, and at one point sprinted through a briefly opened gate into the separate portion of the park for small dogs. She spends most of the concert curled up into a ball on a bench, shivering, because she doesn’t realize that she only shivers when she stays in one place for too long instead of running around.

I begin to get worried. Is this really bad for her? Are her ears dying right now? I whip out a phone and google whether loud noises can make dogs go deaf. (After further research, they can’t.)

Eventually, Laz gets up, and I’m excited for her to have a good dog time with the other dogs. Instead, she crawls under a bench and hides.

She’s just out of my reach, and although she’ll typically go anywhere for a treat, she refuses to exit. I spend the entirety of “Clique” trying to lure her out. During Pusha T’s performance of “Numbers on the Boards,” I get down on the ground, lay on my back, clip her leash onto her collar, and drag her out.

As high as Kanye is on that list of my favorite things, I don’t want to risk my dog doing something drastic to escape the noise, like jumping a fence and running away. So we walk away as Big Sean raps “IDFWU.”

At first, I’m disappointed in myself. You just left a Kanye concert! That goes against everything I stand for. I wonder if he brought out Jay, or dipped into his older catalog. I just left a Kanye concert. Who am I?

Then I start looking at the flustered pup scurrying through the slush trying to find places to crap in midtown. All the other dogs enjoyed themselves at the Kanye concert. They did fun dog things like running and playing and jumping. But not Laz.

When you own a dog, it becomes your best friend. When I come home, she gets really excited and jumps around and tries to lick my face. This friendship is based on things like bellyrubs and neck scratches, but I assumed my dog would share my interests with me, if she were human. Because she’s my friend.

Then I took her to a Kanye show, and she was miserable. What if Laz hates Kanye? What if she’d be one of those people who doesn’t like rap and wouldn’t get the creativity behind sampling and wouldn’t listen to his lyrics and would just think he’s a big talentless jerk? What if Laz, made human, would be that person furiously RT’ing memes about how selfish he was for rushing the stage at the Grammys?