We all stood there in the pouring rain watching each other dance around like it was the first time it had ever rained on Randall’s Island. We all stood there under overcast skies drinking passion hibiscus iced tea, listening to Zella Day as she leaped around the stage. We all stood there on the train that Sunday morning thinking Kayne, please come through. We all stood there on Flushing’s pavement thinking Kanye, please come through. Although the Governors Ball music festival and The Meadows music festival were very different events taking place several months apart, oddly a lack of Kanye West was a common theme that connected the two.

The Governors Ball Music Festival has been allocating happiness, creativity and amity to over 100,000 people since 2011. I attended the Governors Ball in 2015 and 2016, and I had never seen so many genuinely happy people in one place at one time. Despite some rain, the sun still made a powerful appearance, casting warmth and shining rays onto the grassy lawn of Randall’s Island. The park was populated with insta-worthy artwork, hammocks, photo-booths, and shops to buy merchandise. What I loved was that there was always something to do. In fact, there were always multiple somethings to do. You could get cereal-flavored ice cream or a refreshing coconut or go to any of the stages and dance around. My favorite performance was Drake’s in 2015. His new music made the crowd sing until they had no voice left, and his old classics made the crowd sway back and forth with palpable feelings of nostalgia. Fast forward to the 2016 festival. The majority of the day bubbled with the happiness and excitement that defined past festivals. Then, the rain came, and it never left. The rough weather drenched the crowd. Kanye wasn’t able to attend the Governors Ball in 2016 due to this weather, so then he decided to host a pop-up show in Manhattan at two in the morning in lieu of this. He took it upon himself to promote this impromptu show, without actually arranging it with the venue first. Thousands and thousands of people flocked to Webster Hall and waited for Kanye West to perform. Did that happen? No.

The Meadows Music & Arts Festival was created by the same people who created the Governors Ball, so everyone had high expectations for the event. It was normal to be skeptical at first—an entire music festival in the Citi Field parking lot? However, the layout of the stages and the lineup of food trucks around the perimeter of the space were perfect. The headliners were just as perfect as the delicious, fresh margherita pizza I had as soon as I entered the festival. My friends and I stood for six hours straight at the same stage, Meadows, to see Bryson Tiller, Chance the Rapper, and Kanye West. Bryson Tiller was by far my favorite performance, his sound pumped carefree vibes through the crowd. Chance the Rapper’s performance featured singing/talking puppets and explosions of confetti that showered down on the crowd. What could go wrong? For the beginning of Kanye’s show, everything was as expected. The crowd was a sea of bright iPhone screens, recording Kanye’s every move. The deep scarlet and tangerine lights on the stage made West appear as a dark silhouette at times, which added to the mystery of his powerful performance. Suddenly, as everyone was screaming the lyrics to the song Heartless, Kanye cut the music and said there was a family emergency and the show had to be over. Confusion, exasperation, and frustration struck the crowd like lightning.

The Kanye Curse is a term I created to describe Kanye’s missing presence at the last two festivals I attended. Although some might say that for each show, Kanye’s no-shows were not his fault. Sure, I’ll give him that for Gov Ball—the concert organizers cancelled the show, and he was so keyed up to perform, he tried to put on his own show. But, at The Meadows, Kanye kept his fans waiting for over a half hour for his performance. After he began his late performance, he cut it short because his wife, Kim Kardashian, was robbed at gunpoint of ten million dollars worth of jewels in France.

Either way, it seems to me that this is some sort of curse and probably ample proof that Kanye is not the god he professes to be. After attending both the Governors Ball and the Meadows, I think that Kanye West is Bound 2 bad luck when it comes to performing.