On a muggy Friday evening in the Bronx, one of the world's biggest rap stars and a popular, re-emergent crooner and multi-instrumentalist gave hit after hit to a packed Yankee Stadium.
Jay Z and Justin Timberlake will do it again tonight.
The two artists are safe bets and consummate professionals -- the 2013 equivalent of corporate rockers -- and their crisp, generous two-and-a-half hour tag team performance at the Stadium aimed to satisfy. It did so without desperation, but also without the swagger that has often been the rapper's calling card. The pair fronted an eighteen-piece band, traded time in the spotlight, and occasionally re-created the excitement of their collaborative records. The show was not revelatory in any way: Jay Z did not seem anywhere near as haunted or driven as he had during his Throne tour with Kanye West, and Timberlake, an artist who has never demonstrated much urgency, seemed happy to settle into the role of friendly, accommodating entertainer. Think of the Legends of the Summer tour as a July Hollywood blockbuster: not particularly taxing, filled with thrills, and starring two marquee names who've made tougher, more vital projects in the past.
It even had a brief appearance from a female co-star. Alicia Keys dropped by the stadium to add her voice to "Empire State of Mind," an anthemic single that attempts to establish Jay Z as the heir to Gotham showbiz royalty. In case anybody in the audience didn't get the connection, Timberlake framed the performance of "Empire" with an enthusiastic reading of "New York, New York." (He was somewhat more convincing delivering the hooks of Jay Z songs, including the Neptunes-produced hit "I Just Wanna Love U") The "Empire" production was the most crowd-pleasing moment of the evening, and it did make its point: If something like an entertainment industry establishment exists in 2013, we were in the presence of it.
The concert was at its best when both artists were onstage together -- which wasn't quite as often as it should have been. The pairing provided most of the show's most memorable sequences, even if none of them was any more unexpected as Keys' surprise appearance. Timberlake's gleeful read on "I Want You Back" morphed into "Izzo," a Jay Z production that samples the Jackson 5. During the rap-rock "99 Problems," Timberlake strapped on a guitar and hammered away at Rick Rubin's big riff; in the second verse, he took on the role of the police interrogator. Later, Timberlake dropped a bit of "Clique," a Jay Z rap, into the middle of "Cry Me a River." "Suit and Tie," the recent Jay Z/Timberlake single, was pleasantly chummy -- although nothing in the show approached the raffish camaraderie of the Throne.
My review of this fine, if fairly predictable, collaborative stadium concert will run in Monday's Star-Ledger.
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