“Close your eyes and imagine, feel the magic, Vegas on acid seen through Yves Saint Laurent glasses,” Kanye West once said, way back on “Diamonds From Sierra Leone,” back when he wasn’t so seemingly determined to phone it in lyrically on every 2nd or 3rd track. It’s a dynamic, interesting way to start a verse, conjuring imagery without actually being visual or descriptive. In writing terms, it’s more telling instead of showing, but it works because “Vegas on acid” is enough for an imaginative mind to run with.
Of course, I’ve never tried acid, and in a more realistic sense, I figure Vegas on acid would be more like the unpleasant, mind-bending trip from Fear and Loathing than the “magic” Kanye wished to conjure, but I prefer to see Mr. West’s version and vision, and I think this “Las Vegas in Infrared” video shot and shared by Phillip Bloom conjures the aforementioned magic. Slow motion, strange colors and dark daylight. I only wish we could have seen the city’s lights at night through this dreamlike point of view, and the absence of my beloved Bellagio fountains breaks a small bit of my heart, but those are minor, unworthy complaints. For such a simple video, this has a few moments and images that border on mesmeric. And yes, magical.
