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Filed under: Music
TMZ.com: There was some debate as to whether it was right to perform on 9/11 — but whatever your opinion on the matter, there is no debating that Jay-Z tore the roof of Madison Square Garden last night. Jigga performed dozens of his hits, including the … Read more
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Filed under: Music, Beauty, ‘Memba Them?!
TMZ.com: With songs like “Shadowboxer,” “Sleep to Dream” and “Criminal,” Fiona Apple became famous during the angry female singer-songwriters wave of the mid-90s. Guess what she looks like now! … Read more
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Filed under: Music, Michael Jackson
TMZ.com: Jermaine Jackson made it appear that he pushed back the date for the Michael Jackson tribute concert so big artists could clear their schedule and appear — but here’s something you probably didn’t see.On the official website for the concert, if you … Read more
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More than any rapper and more than most pop stars, Jay-Z knows the significance of a moment.
The Brooklyn MC’s career is practically defined by them. There’s his Summer Jam obliteration of Mobb Deep’s Prodigy back in 2001, the same year he brought out Michael Jackson for Hot 97’s annual concert. There was his retirement show at Madison Square Garden captured in the documentary Fade to Black. And then there was his Radio City Music Hall show to celebrate the 10-year anniversary of Reasonable Doubt. And who could forget the Best of Both Worlds fiasco with R. Kelly that turned into the celebrated Jay-Z and Friends jaunt. He’s even transformed festivals into his personal showcases, with his appearance at Glastonbury last year and All Points West this year.
But when Hov announced he’d be headlining a September 11th benefit show, to not only coincide with the anniversary of his classic album The Blueprint but also to mark the release of his latest effort, The Blueprint 3, one had to wonder if this ambitious slate reeked of opportunism.
It did not.
Last night at the Garden, Jay-Z delivered a carefully orchestrated and riveting show striking the the impossibly difficult balance of serving the cause and seizing another night that will stand out in his long list of historic performances.
“We celebrating life tonight, we having a good time,” Jay-Z told the sold-out audience, which included Diddy, Justin Timberlake, Katy Perry and Chris Rock, among other celebrities. “But let’s not forget in 2001 when the first Blueprint came out terrorist attacked New York. They thought they would weaken us. They were sadly mistaken. We stand here even stronger. This is our town. We run New York City. We run this town.”
And with that, the blaring Rihanna’s wailing voice boomed over the sound system. The “Umbrella” star then appeared under the spotlight decked out in a dominatrix-like black outfit. “We are, yeah I said it, We are, This is Roc Nation, pledge your allegiance,” Jay-Z rapped.
Kanye West joined the pair toward the end of the song, completing the triumvirate as he jumped from the stairs on the middle of the stage. ‘Ye stuck around for a few more songs, diving into “Can’t Tell Me Nothing” before asking Big Brother if he can keep going.
“Let’s do it,” Jay replied.
“Good Life” then came on, sans T-Pain, and an animated West — complete with a new ‘do, with zig-zag lines cut into his hair — fumbled a few of his lines but saved himself with an impromptu freestyle. “I fucked up the flow, but everybody know, I gotta give a shout out to my big bro,” he spit, drawing a smile from Jay.
The parade of guest appearances continued with Pharell Williams, Swizz Beatz and Mary J. Blige joining Jay-Z. John Mayer also popped up to play guitar for Jay-Z on “D.O.A. (Death of Auto-Tune).”
Throughout the set, Jay-Z dipped into catalog but also performed new songs from his recently released BP3. Upstart Kid Cudi arrived onstage to assist Hov on “Already Home,” where the legendary rapper eviscerates mouthy MCs who say Jay-Z’s tenure on top is in the way of their rise to fame.
“These niggas want me to go, don’t they know that I’m gone/ They know that I’m space shuttle level, they need oxyggggon/Don’t they know that I yawn/ Only time they exciting is when they mentioning Shawn,” he rapped.
The Timbaland-produced “Venus vs. Mars” was another new tracked Jay-Z performed. He closed the song out with a new freestyled verse at the end where he name-checked Kanye’s lady friend Amber Rose and financial villain Bernie Madoff. Seconds after he finished, Beyoncé, featured on the song’s chorus, emerged from the bowels of the Garden rising up through a trap door to perform “Diva.”
The star wattage was bright but the greatest applause of the night came in honor of the service men and women who protect our country on this tragic date eight years ago.
As “Young Forever” spilled out over the arena speakers, a beautiful montage of firefighters and police officers who lost their lives on 9/11 eight years ago appeared behind Jay-Z on a huge screen. “Make some noise for those that lost their lives so we could live ours,” Jay-Z said.
Tags: Benefit Show, Best Of Both Worlds, Celebrating Life, Chris Rock, City Music Hall, Fade To Black, guitar, Having A Good Time, Hot 97, Jay Z, Jay Z And Friends, Madison Square Garden, Mobb Deep, Music, Obliteration, Opportunism, Pop Stars, Radio City Music, Radio City Music Hall, Reasonable Doubt, rihanna, Summer Jam
Now in its second year, the upstate New York installment of the U.K. concert series All Tomorrow’s Parties prides itself on being unlike other festivals. There is no corporate sponsorship, there is no water for sale, and (perhaps most humanely) there are no Port-a-Potties. ATP NY happens at a Catskills country club called Kutsher’s, a frozen-in-time sort of place where carpeted walls are common and the bands play not outside on grassy fields but in one of two dark ballrooms. In the larger of the two, a cosmic star-scape mural worthy of an ’80s Laser Tag emporium commands the walls.
The festival’s first night was given largely to “Don’t Look Back” performances: a canon-building exercise in which a band plays a “classic” album, more or less in full, and in order. In the late afternoon, New Jersey’s the Feelies took the stage to perform their 1980 debut, Crazy Rhythms. The band, proto-indie-rockers, always cultivated a buttoned-up, clean cut, borderline geeky aesthetic, both in the way they dressed and the way they wrote music. Last night, their songs were buttoned up to the point of bursting: kinetic, deceptively simple polyrhythms courtesy of two drummers (and, on album opener “The Boy With the Perpetual Nervousness,” three) created a pulsating, nervous grid upon which bright, clipped guitar notes were arranged, occasionally loosening into sprays of jubilant noise.
“Loveless Love” started like a gathering storm, moody and foreboding, and gradually accelerated, different elements finally locking into an insistent, almost ferocious formation. But that “almost” was key — the songs generated near-unbearable friction, but the band always kept them hovering on the edge of combustion. The effect was tense and tantalizing, like holding a lit book of matches an inch from an open gas drum.
If the Feelies were all about tightly wound gallops, Dirty Three were about lurching, sprawling funeral marches. (Check out footage from the band’s set plus an interview with Warren Ellis and Nick Cave, above). The Australian trio — joined on a gleaming white piano by longtime friend Nick Cave, playing the part of unassuming, almost unnoticeable sideman — performed 1998’s Ocean Songs, a plaintive, pained, all-instrumental album in which a violin does double duty as instrumental centerpiece and keening, moaning vocalist.
Dirty Three are more interested in shaggy, shadowy mood than properly sculpted songs — they are a band for fans of very gloomy fiddling. But violinist and frontman Warren Ellis kept the set from sinking into one joyless dirge. He slithered and kicked, making violin-playing look like a lascivious, illicit act. In between songs he rasped about how the band is “not responsible for emo,” apparently a theory he’d read online, and to prove his sense of joie de vivre, he encouraged prospective lovers in the crowd to “wear a condom… or at least the bladder of a rugby ball.” With a guy capable of banter like that, you almost wished Ocean Songs — written about femme fatales and failed experiments with psychedelic drugs — had lyrics.
Kutsher’s is part of the so-called “Borsht Belt” — that string of Catskills resorts where polyester-draped Jewish comedians legendarily hammed it up for vacationing families. At 7:30, the crowd was treated to a manic, shrieking stand-up routine of sorts, courtesy of a 71-year-old Jew born Boruch Bermowitz and better known as Alan Vega, the singer (if that’s the right word) for iconic New York noise vandals Suicide.
Ever hear the one about the 20-year-old factory worker who, broke, desperate, and insane, shoots his wife and infant child before turning the gun on himself? That’s the plot of “Frankie Teardrop,” one of the most harrying songs on the band’s harrying 1977 self-titled debut. Using the same primitive keyboards and drum machines he did 30-odd years ago, Martin Rev carved out slabs of pulverizing noise: hammering kick drums, maniacally repeating minor-key melodies, shrill synthetic cymbal clatter swarming the high end. Vega’s advanced years did little to soften his assault — he jerked his limbs, howled, and at one point rubbed himself. There are only two guys in the band, but the stage was impenetrably thick with sound, not to mention psychosis.
After Suicide’s nightmare parade, the crowd was treated to a set of reverb-dipped, disassembled lullabies from Animal Collective’s Panda Bear. (The full band plays tonight). Like the Dirty Three and Suicide, he built moods and lived in them for a bit, and then for a bit longer; like the Feelies, he experimented with eternally delayed gratification. On “Daily Routine,” from 2008’s Person Pitch, he crafted a shimmering wading pool of sound, and periodically skipped a throbbing dance beat across it like a stone — but the beat. would. suddenly. slow…. down…. and…. fade…. out, leaving us suspended in the noise again. At other points, sampled acoustic guitar strums bubbled sweetly to the surface. Panda Bear’s set was a return to a ’60s-ish palette of sounds and attitudes: a sunny, hypnotic detour in an an evening full of frenetic time-traveling.
Tags: Ballrooms, Book Of Matches, Boy With The Perpetual Nervousness, Catskills, Classic Albums, Corporate Sponsorship, Crazy Rhythms, Dirty Three, Drummers, Frozen In Time, Gathering Storm, Grassy Fields, guitar, Guitar Notes, instrument, Kutsher, Laser Tag, Late Afternoon, Loveless, Music, Nick Cave, Polyrhythms, Time SortWhen images of Kelly Clarkson on the cover of the September issue of Self hit the Internets last week, a storm started raging. Apparently, it’s still going strong, with Self’s Editor in Chief Lucy Danziger appearing on Today just this …
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