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Jay-Z: Larger than life at the Erwin Center
There are some performers who simply seem like they aren’t made of the same stuff as the rest of us. Jay-Z is one of those cats.
I will leave the review to my buddy Chad Swiatecki, who covers it well here. But I will say that Jay-Z is one of the most charismatic performers, most charismatic humans, I have ever seen live. He commanded the sold-out crowd at the Erwin Center from the second he rose from the bowels of the stage - a bit of showmanship that echoed his supernatural sense of himself.
I have never seen a crowd bounce in unison like that. I have never seen one man with a mic control a crowd the way Jay-Z did. I have never been so aware of the palpable sense that all of the women in a crowd wanted to get with the performer and all of the men wanted to be him. With his terrific 10-piece band positioned on risers slightly above the stage, Jay-Z was left to command the entire main stage by himself, stalking it from corner to corner in between amazing lyrical flourishes and admonitions to the crowd to get them moving, not that they needed much prodding.
He was Muhammad Ali, Eddie Murphy and Frank Sinatra rolled into one. Sure, the self-confidence tended toward self-indulgence at times in a set that lost a little steam near the end with Jay’s crowd banter and his cheesy play on German group Alphaville’s “Forever Young,” but, playing hit after hit from his 11 number one albums of the past 13 years, on this night, Jay-Z was Reggie Jackson in the 1977 World Series. One upper-deck shot after another. The ultimate baller.
I know some people roll their eyes at Jay-Z The Brand, a bottom-line-minded, savvy mogul who just happens to still make hits, but there is no denying the man is first and foremost a performer of the highest caliber … the most charismatic and affable CEO on the planet.
I was told by friends who attended that they were mired in a mini sea of drunk frat boys making fools of themselves (and, to be certain, I have never seen that many newly purchased Yankees lids), but my immediate section seemed to be comprised of an instant group of friends at a massive indoor block party. As for the sound at the much maligned Erwin Center, a venue I have not visited since seeing the Beastie Boys there a half dozen years ago, I didn’t have one complaint.
Set List: Run This Town, D.O.A., U Don’t Know, 99 Problems, Show Me What You Got, Give It To Me, Diamond Is Forever, Jigga My N——, Izzo (H.O.V.A.), Jigga What Jigga Who, P.S.A., Heart of the City, Already Home, Empire State of Mind, A Star Is Born, So Ambitious, Dirt Off Ya Shoulder — (encore break) — Thank U, medley (On to the Next One, Excuse Me Miss, Venus Vs. Mars, ‘03 Bonnie & Clyde, Lucifer, Swagga Like Us, Can I Get A?), Big Pimpin’, Hard Knock Life, Numb/Encore, Young Forever
Check out Statesman photog Ricardo B. Brazziell’s excellent photos from the night here.
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By b
November 11, 2009 1:41 PM | Link to this
think you and your readers might enjoy this. jay’s the best that ever did it.
http://www.charlierose.com/view/interview/8771