Jay-Z Blueprint 3 Concert Review

I was in Toronto and got a chance to peep out the Jay-Z Blueprint 3 Concert. Here’s my full review along with videos from the show.

Opening Acts:

Wale
I’m still trying to figure out why this guy has a deal. There is absolutely nothing going for this guy: flow, voice, charisma, and songs. All garbage. The worst part about this guys’ act is he ends the show with that dreaded track with Lady Gaga and encourages the crowd to sing “na na na hey hey hey goodbye”. Very gay.

N.E.R.D.
Or more appropriately Pharrell. All I got to say about this guy is he is a certified star and knows how to rock a crowd. My only grievance with his performance is that he played only two songs from their last album Seeing Sounds and should have played more since that album was pretty bad ass.

Headliner:

Jay-Z
Since everyone came to see Jay-Z, it was Jay-Z’s night for the taking. He opened the show with “Run This Town” which pretty much shut down the stadium as everyone was going buck.

Watch Jay-Z perform “Run This Town” in Toronto.
[flashvideo file=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=li3kzyT6NeM /]

He performed a good mix of songs from his massive discography including “PSA”, “You Don’t Know”, “Big Pimpin'”, “Jigga What”, “Give It To Me” and “Can I Get..”. Since some of these songs are over 10 years old, they all got great responses. Hov ran into some trouble when he performed his newer material such as “Already Home” which most people including myself are not feeling.

Jay-Z performs “Already Home” in Toronto.
[flashvideo file=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DTLyapUH00Y /]

Things got back on track when he performed “A Star is Born” in which he brought out a bewildered looking J.Cole. Even though I’m not to much into J.Cole, I do think he has more potential than say a Young Chris.

Here’s J.Cole performing “A Star is Born” in Toronto.
[flashvideo file=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1BXpXqHBCLo /]

Half way during the show, Jay-Z brought Toronto’s own Drake out to perform “Successful” in which saw Jay-Z becoming Drake’s hypeman. Now I don’t know about you but reducing Hov to a hypeman is kinda ill. The crowd was into Drake’s performance but I could sense most Jay-Z fans, beings guys, are not buying Drake’s female driven hype – just yet.

Here’s Drake performing at Jay-Z’s The Blueprint 3 concert in Toronto.

[flashvideo file=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JvIq1zuAbNo /]

Another cool point in the night was when Jay-Z stopped the show to shout out people in the crowd. The camera would pan around the stadium and Jay-Z would make a funny comment about the person’s attire since it was Halloween night and people dressed up in costumes to go to a Jay-Z concert [sidebar: why on Earth would you do that? I do not know]. I thought this was a good way of getting a stadium-size crowd to feel more like an intimate club setting and to really connect with Sean Carter.

As an aside, Jay-Z panned to Toronto rapper Kardinal Offishall who was in the crowd and gave him a shout out in which case the crowd went crazy, even more louder than for Drake.

Overall, the show was an 8/10 as you cannot deny the amount of hits and influence Jay-Z has had over the last decade. I couldn’t help but think that Hov’s looking a little tired which might be due to his age and I can definitely say he lacked the energy of a drug induced Lil Wayne. Me and my peeps we’re discussing it afterwards and we’re pretty sure Jay-Z’s going to be touring when he’s in his fifties. Afterall his mind’s thinking longevity till he’s seventy.

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