Justin Timberlake and Jay-Z - Legends of the Summer - Yankee Stadium (7.19.13)

[Roxy Poodle]

I'd probably bug you guys with my concert photos anyway, but I feel especially justified given how totally dead it's been around here lately! Where are you, photographers? Did you buy your macro lens, MG?? Inquiring minds, you know?!?

Anyhow, I spent the weekend at Yankee Stadium watching Jay-Z's and Justin Timberlake's Legends of the Summer tour. It was a great, GREAT show, but I wouldn't recommend it entirely without reservations. Commentary:

- Justin Timberlake is an absurdly gifted performer. I'll rank Jon Bon Jovi as the single most charismatic performer I've ever seen live. Justin Timberlake's #2. Seriously. He was *that* good.

- I love Jay-Z. I've seen him 10 times in the less than 2 years, never fewer than 2 nights in a row and as many as four nights in a row. But even if you're not crazy about Jay-Z, you might find yourself feeling -- as the girls on the subway next to me coming home from the show did -- that "He wasn't as bad as I thought he'd be." He's got some exceptional beats beneath his music, and his songs are more audience-participatory than anyone other than the occasional folk band that I've seen.

So you couldn't ask more out of the performers: Tons of live singers and musicians on the stage. Jay-Z and JT on stage together for about half the night and trading off for the rest of the night. Just great. The problem is the venues they're playing. I saw this show two nights in a row. I was in the fourth row on the side (which, because I was on the aisle, was really the equivalent of the front row because of the way the rows were angled), and it was spectacular. My entire section made friends with each other because we were all so psyched to be there. People were getting DOWN. I felt like I'd made 60,000 new friends.

The second night, however, I sat in the relative steerage of the 200s. People were having a good time, but I felt almost like I was watching it on TV. Like, there was a show going on, and I was looking at it, but I wasn't really part of it. I was surprised there wasn't more production value. The stage was *huge*, but they didn't do much with the lighting or anything. I don't know ... I haven't seen too many shows in stadiums, but the only bands I've ever seen pull it off are Bon Jovi and Pink Floyd (because their entire show was production value -- at one point a plane flew across the stadium and crashed into an empty section and exploded ... which is actually kind of horrifying in hindsight, but in 1994 it was friggin' spectacular).

So yeah, if you want to drop a pile of money on floor seats, it will be money well spent. Otherwise, it'll still be a good show, but you might leave feeling like you missed out on some of the party.

ANYHOW! Pictures!

New favorite picture I've ever taken:






JT playing electric guitar during a rocked-out mash-up of Jay-Z's "99 Problems" and Aerosmith's "Walk This Way".






JT singing Frank Sinatra's "New York, New York" leading into ...




... Jay-Z and Alicia Keys singing "Empire State of Mind".




Justin Timberlake and Timbaland bringing "Sexy Back". Humorously, JT didn't actually announce Timbland the first night. I think maybe one-third of the audience realized who it was. The second night, he made sure to announce him when he waddled out on stage!




Second to last song of the night: "Suit and Tie". (The last song of the night was Jay-Z's "Young Forever" and *MAN* did JT sound amazing singing Mr Hudson's parts. There's a sonically pretty damn good crowd-filmed version posted to YouTube here.)




Those are just some of my favorites. I posted a bunch more to Flickr: Legends of the Summer @ Yankee Stadium (Night One - 7.19.13)

[GreenMan]

[badger]

I love these posts and the pictures that come with them. Thanks for sharing

Just curious - Why do you see shows multiple nights in a row?

[Roxy Poodle]

I love these posts and the pictures that come with them. Thanks for sharing

Just curious - Why do you see shows multiple nights in a row?

Thanks! I have third row seats to Bon Jovi next Saturday, so I expect I might have another post soon!

As to why I often to go the same show 2+ nights in a row, there are a bunch of reasons:

- Going to concerts is my absolute favorite thing in the world, so often there's nothing I'd *rather* do than go to the show again. Especially artists that do different setlists every night ... I'd see Ani DiFranco or Howie Day or someone like that as many times as they're playing because the show would be different every night. But a handful of artists are just really fun to watch, so if they're playing, I'm there! And I just love the vibe at some shows ... Jay-Z's always got these fantastic DJs spinning before his shows. His Barclays Center shows were an old school hip hop party for 90 minutes before he came on stage every night. Just people dancing and singing like their lives depended on it. Yankee Stadium, meanwhile, was like a nightclub. They had all the lights turned out; the place was just lit by the stage even before the show started. (It was actually a little TOO dark in my getting-more-boring-the-older-I-get opinion. Everybody was in the wrong seats because you couldn't see where you were going.) But the DJ there was playing old school hip hop and mixed with classic good time music -- Prince, Guns' n Roses, Jackson 5. Just really really FUN.

- Bands that I really love, I almost get a little stressed out because I feel like I can't take everything in that I want to take in all at once. So if they're playing more than one show, I find I can enjoy myself more because I feel like I can pace myself a little more.

- For big shows, I really like to have different vantage points. My favorite of the four shows I saw when Jay-Z opened Barclays Center in Brooklyn was the show where I had the worst seats. His stage and the light design were so *extremely* spectacular that you couldn't possibly even comprehend the whole thing unless you had some distance from it. That production was built specifically for Barclays Center -- it didn't tour -- so I suspect that could do things with it that you couldn't do if you had to move it from city to city and set it up in difference spaces every night. I'd seen the show three times already, and I was up there in the rafters feeling like I was watching an entirely different show. (Also, Beyonce came out for a couple songs in the middle of the show that night ... I don't think I've ever heard 20,000 just completely lose their shit so hard in my entire life. However you feel about her music, the lady commands your attention!)

- I have approaching an unlimited budget for concerts. Most people spend their money on stuff like kids or vacation or a house or whatever it might be. For me it's concerts. But I am unique among my friends that way. So often I'll go to a show twice just so I can go alone and sit wherever the heck I want one night and then hang out with my friends in the cheaper seats the next.

So yeah, it's usually some combination of all that stuff!

And if anybody's interested in seeing Jay-Z's Barclays Center set, the link below is a professionally recorded version of the last night of the eight-night run. You don't even have to watch any Jay-Z if you don't want to -- you can just watch the (very cool) intro to see the stage (and the difference between being right up close against it and being further away), but I'd recommend watching the intro and then skipping ahead to 31:40 to really see the stage in action.

Jay-Z - Barclays Center Night 8 (10.06.12)

[badger]

 

And here I thought you would just say: I take pictures one night, and just enjoy the concert on the other night