Kid Cudi Drops Off Lady Gaga's The Monster Ball Tour

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Kid Cudi has left the Monster Ball early, vacating his opening-act slot on Lady Gaga's current tour just five days after punching a fan during a solo performance in Vancouver. According to the official statement posted on Dat New Cudi, the Grammy-nominated rapper took "an early leave of absence from Lady Gaga's Monster Ball tour, in order to balance his schedule surrounding the recording of his next album and acting commitments." Cudi will now embark on his own solo trek, which kicked off last night in Reno, Nevada.

In addition to opening for Gaga, Cudi was performing his own shows during off-days and after-hours on the Monster Ball Tour. In fact, Cudi's punching incident at Vancouver's Commodore Ballroom on December 12th took place during the "Day N Nite" rapper's fifth show in three days in the British Columbian city, the Vancouver Sun notes, so the heavy schedule may have taken its toll on Cudi. Video of the incident showed Cudi catching a wallet that was thrown at him during the performance and then throwing it back in the crowd. The audience member who caught the wallet wasn't actually the owner, so he threw it back at Cudi, who then lashed out with punches at the concertgoer.

This isn't the first time a rapper has opted out of a tour with Gaga: As Rolling Stone previously reported, the Hot Diva's planned Fame Kills tour with Kanye West was called off at the last minute just days after West interrupted Taylor Swift's acceptance speech at the MTV Video Music Awards. No word yet regarding who will replace Cudi on the Monster Ball, which continues tonight in Las Vegas.

Kid Cudi's solo tour dates:
Dec. 22 - Los Angeles, CA @ Club Nokia
Dec. 23 - Los Angeles, CA @ Club Nokia
Dec. 27 - North Myrtle Beach, SC @ House of Blues
Dec. 31 - Miami Beach, FL @ Wet at the W Hotel
Jan. 5 - Covington, KY @ Madison Theater
Jan. 6 - Milwaukee, WI @ The Rave
Jan. 11 - Ann Arbor, MI @ University of Michigan
Jan. 15 - Cleveland, OH @ Agora Theater
Jan. 22 - New York, NY @ The Fillmore at Irving Plaza

Related Stories:
• Live Review: Lady Gaga Brings Her Pop Theatricality to Boston in First U.S. "Monster Ball" Show
• Lady Gaga Exclusive: Inside Her Plans for The Monster Ball Tour
• Kanye West and Lady Gaga "Fame Kills" Tour Canceled

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Song Stories

“The Everchanging Spectrum of a Lie”

The Joy Formidable | 2011

The opener off the Welsh group’s The Big Roar album was an epic one, but the band was worried that track had polarized fans. “The first song is eight minutes long,” Rhydian Dafydd, the Joy Formidable bassist, said. “If you did that in the Seventies people would be, ‘Whatever.’ You do it now, people think, ‘Holy s---!’ Some people think it’s the f---ing greatest track on the entire album, and some people think it’s f---ing boring. It’s that element of needing to challenge people.” The band concluded through the song’s lyrics that love was the “everchanging spectrum of a lie.”

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