Jay-Z and Kanye West

Holy bananas.  Last Thursday, I got to see Jay and Ye perform here in DC and I'm still going on and on and on about the show.
"See Kanye live" was on my to-do list for 2011 (what, don't you have one, too?), and John Paul gifted me tickets to see him for my birthday.  With Jay-Z.  I wish I could say how much this meant to me, but words don't do it justice.  I tried to get tickets myself when they went on pre-sale, but the tickets I could afford sold out by the time I refreshed the Ticketmaster page.  I thought, Well, I'll just read about it and keep listening to Watch the Throne incessantly.  I squealed in the restaurant when JP handed over these tickets. I've been waiting for 2.5 months for this night, and you better believe I savored it.

We had seats in the middle of the arena, and it was crazy amazing.  First of all, I can't tell you the last show I saw with seats (usually, it's general admission), and it was sold out, so the buzz in the audience was palpable.  Jay and Kanye performed the first two songs on stages on either side of the bottom of the arena.  And, as if hearing them perform "Who Gon Stop Me" live wasn't unreal enough, the spectacle kicked in.

Both stages raised up above the audience, into huge cubes with screens on all sides.  They showed video of sharks swimming in a sea (it seriously looked like they were about to drop into shark cages), and a lot of animal imagery.  The video portion of the show was going with a lot of natural imagery, usually depicting the brutality of animal nature.  I was down with it; never having seen an arena show before, I was just in awe of the thought put into the visuals.

They played almost all of the songs from Watch the Throne, and each of them gave up the stage for the other to perform their solo works.  All in all, they performed about 40 songs- all of the biggies.  We heard "Gold Digger," "Good Life," "H to the Izzo," "Empire State of Mind," "Otis," "Monster," "Runaway,"...I could go on.  Both of them did "99 Problems" and I about died of happiness and excitement.

I can't say enough about how awesome last Thursday was.  Seeing both of these amazing artists perform, together, was mind-blowing.  Kanye plays the tortured yet egotistical artist, while Jay has the self-assured swagger of a man who's made it.  They play off of each other so naturally and comfortably that you almost can't imagine them touring separately.  

This post could go for several more days, so I'll just close by saying two things: if you get a chance to see these guys live, suck it up and pay the exorbitant ticket price, and many, many, many thanks to my boo for taking me as his date.  I already knew I was a lucky girl, but this certainly clinched the deal.