last night's gig

Guess What Kanye Was Doing Last Night at 3 A.M.

If you ride the elevator up to the room formerly known as the Boom Boom Room at the top of the Standard Hotel this Fashion Week, you’ll see an uncensored version of “Power,” Kanye West’s “video portrait” shot by Marco Brambilla and featuring a godlike Kanye amid a bunch of hot, fantastical women with horns and wings. Kanye had actually discovered Brambilla while riding the Standard’s elevator, which previously featured a video called “Civilization,” which combines CGI and old movie clips. He got in touch and they spent a month and a half making “Power.” In the version playing in the elevator, the women’s clothes fall up as the elevator ascends.

So it’s no wonder that around 3 a.m., Kanye — seen in public not wearing a suit, for the first time in months — showed up at a party celebrating the end of summer hours at Boom. By that time, the crowd of ten bajillion celebrities who’d either migrated from a Chanel dinner for Karl Lagerfeld or shown up just to show up — including Naomi Campbell, Liv Tyler, Jessica Szohr, Chace Crawford, Diane Kruger, Elijah Wood, and pretty much every other famous person on the planet — had gone home. Typical, tardy Kanye.

When he arrived, Standard owner André Balazs led him to a spot by the pool table. But Kanye was apparently so inspired by seeing his explicit video in the elevator that he soon jumped on the bar to sing “Power.” The crowd, naturally, went nuts. And the D.J.’s smartly moved into playing “Good Life,” which Kanye sang along to as well. Soon, others in the crowd had jumped onto the bar and were singing and dancing along with him. All of which has taught us two things: (1) Kanye is a really awesome, generous dude at three in the morning; and (2) don’t ever leave a party early at the room formerly known as the Boom Boom Room.

Guess What Kanye Was Doing Last Night at 3 A.M.