"Once you've seen one Jay-Z concert, you've seen them all" came to mind last night as I watched Jay-Z perform at an extremely packed Alexandra Palace full of 7000+ Jigga stans throwing up the ROC sign in North London.
With a full live band in gear with great imagery and flashing lights the show began.
Jay-Z performed songs off of his new album BluePrint 3 with hype man Memphis Bleek such as 'What We Talkin' About', 'D.O.A', 'Onto The Next One', as well as previous hits such as '99 Problems', 'Dirt Off Your Shoulder' and 'Show Me What You Got', where the live band gave it their all - the horns gave the track and the crowd a much needed blast of energy after many moments of pauses throughout his set.
Stand out moment of the show was when Jay performed his new single 'Empire State Of Mind' sans Alicia Keys, with the replacement of vocalist Bridget Kelly. 'Empire State Of Mind' had the crowd in a sense of awe.....kind of like the one Lil' Mama had at the MTV Awards, but there was no way anybody was getting near the stage! People were waving lighters in the air and singing along to the song which looks set to be Jay's second #1 single.
A medley of tracks were performed such as 'Swagga Like Us', 'Crazy In Love, '03 Bonnie & Clyde' which feature vocals from his wife Beyonce. I know the crowd hoped, (like I did), that Bey would appear on stage for those few seconds, but she never -she happily watched her husband perform from the VIP section with Gweneth Paltrow, with her bodyguard Julius by her side.
For the final section of the show Hova brought out Mr Husdon on his peformance of 'Young Forever'. Earlier in the day, the pair had started filming the music video for this track. The crowd were then used for a video promo for 'Young Forever' which was being filmed through that performance, which brought the show to and end as the crowd walked out to the sounds of Nirvana's classic, 'Smells Like Tean Spirit' by the live band.
