Taking the Stage

Late last month, Possible Productions had the opportunity to work on some of the video content for Jay-Z's set during his landmark "Home & Home" four-show tour with Eminem. They played two dates in Detroit's Comerica Park and two dates in New York's Yankee Stadium. Figge and Alex, after working their asses off in New York and Detroit, sat out the Yankee Stadium leg of the tour to go back home to L.A. so they could focus on the video content for Deadmau5's VMA set (which looked fucking fantastic. See some of it here). Possible Production's two All-Access passes thus transferred to me and Roy, so on Monday and Tuesday, it was off to the Bronx with us.

The show, to put it mildly, was amazing. Much of my love for hip-hop has waned in recent years, but Em and Jay are two of the biggest reasons I fell in love with rap in the first place. They also happen to be two of the biggest (with Jay being arguably the biggest ever, no?) hip-hop icons working today. I was excited, but 2002 me would've lost his freaking mind over going to a show like this. 2010 me played it much cooler. Either that or I'm just a lot more jaded now. Probably the latter.

My concert-going phase, which only bloomed in the last few years, never really overlapped with my hip-hop phase, so this is one of the first hip-hop concerts I've attended. I'm familiar with the kind of energy rock shows and music festivals can generate, but I was curious to see if rappers could create that same kind of buzz without the help of soaring melodies or epic solos. Eminem's relentless vitriol, occasional goofiness, and overall sincerity (not to mention a catalogue of hits) helped him command the stage. He put on a good show. But you haven't seen stage presence until you've seen Jay-Z live. That man commands 40,000 strong on swagger alone. Throw that in with his increased touring activity over the last few years, and you have somebody who has mastered how to put on a good show. He knows exactly what his strengths are and when to hit the crowd with something to really stir them up. And nobody in this business seems to have friends like Jay has friends. A slew of guest appearances ensured the night stayed interesting as the concert ran past midnight into hour four.

Awesome show aside, what really put the night over the top for me was just seeing our company's work up on the screen. There were definitely several moments when I found myself looking around the stands of Yankee stadium, packed to the seam with screaming fans, then looked to the stage only to see something I helped make, right there on the screen (though most of the credit goes to Figge and Casey McClain, an animator we hired for the gig), and wondered "How the hell did I get here?" Anyway, making some money and getting the company's name out there on cool shit like this is definitely an unbelievable experience, but here's to hoping it's just the first step towards a future of doing our own projects, our own way. On to the next one!

Now for some pictures (taken on my phone, so forgive the general crappiness):

The view from left field.

Look! Team USA in the crowd! Handy-dandily labeled for easy recognition!

Em and 50.

Oh yeah. He brought out the fucking Doctor. That's him on the bottom left.

Hova!

You knew he had to do a Biggie tribute. That's Possible Productions' work, by the way.

Chris Martin on the left, Jay with the hands up.

 On day two, instead of Chris, he brought out the queen Mary J. Blige!

She ripped a quick solo set.

Blurry picture of Jay and the boy Drake.

And then he brought out Beyonce!

Not the best picture of her, but the clearest one I have.

More Possible Productions on the screen! This one Roy and I actually shot.

Same with this one. Marcy!

Aaaand even more Possible.

I grabbed some video of various songs throughout the concert, but I don't have a way to process the footage right now. Assuming I don't succumb to general laziness, I'll post those later.