Jay-Z. Kanye West. The Throne. In one sentence? Dream team and a host of nightmares vie for Nuv’s soul/attention. In more sentences? That makes it sound worse than it actually was…
You Are Now Watchin’ The Throne. Don’t Let Them Get In Their Zone.
The show was appropriately epic, with grand spectacle manifesting in the stages and smoke and screens and moving setpieces. And, of course, the setlist. No surprise it was MONSTROUS, delivered by two veterans at the top of their game and bringing out the biggest and best, (and more importantly, as witnessed in the Spike Jonze-directed Otis video, the FUN) in each other. The show itself began on a high note, with Kanye on one stage and Jay-Z on the other, directly in front of us. And then the stages raised up. Level with us, and then higher still. Images flickered across the sides of the elevated cubes, atop which stood two musical giants.
They spent the night bouncing off each other, passing the baton so each could run through some of their classic solo songs and coming together like Devastator for tracks off their inaugural collaborative effort, Watch The Throne. Which is exactly what we did. Diamonds in the sky ‘cause we felt the vibe, for hit after hit after hit…
…and there were a lot of hits.
BUT.
There were three major strikes.
First (and worst) was the mob of drunk fuckfaces. This one actually has two sub-sections. Before and during.
Strike 1a.
Before the show some dicks from Manitoba were trying to claim that our seats were theirs to poor Miss Teen USSR and the homey Chris, both being much nicer than they needed to be. They turned around to see me (Jay “Manslaughter” Haddow at my back), got in my face and… apologized? Apparently someone eventually grabbed and read these illiterate shitheads’ tickets and told them where they were actually sitting, and off they went. Hmm. Okay. Ended up being more of a foul ball than a straight up strike, but whatever.
Strike 1b.
During the show there was a weird little gnome with a too-small neck-scarf-bib and the most punchable features ever shat onto a face one row ahead of us. And his row of friends one row behind us. And he spent. The. Whole. Fucking. Show. Turned around and rapping at them. And bumping us with flailing, limp-wristed rap-hand. And blinding us with his cameraphone flash. (Counter attack: chop to the limp wrist, results in flying phone and return of eyesight.) And climbing into our row to get in their row. And apology relay between this drunk cunt and his not even-pretty-in-the-strobelight girl friends. And on his way back to his row, BUMP! Beer on my hoodie…
Pause.
One FURIOUS exhale later, Taliban beard puffed out, activate ‘angry father/deadly serious murderer of neck-erchiefed douchebags’ voice and: “Hey. HEY. Fuckface. (Lean all the way in) Never again.” And so it was. Young Gargamel pranced over the row in front of him and back into the Massengill box from whence he came. And we went back to enjoying the show. And lemme tell you (again), Jay and ‘Ye were on goddamn point! Well, for the most part…
Strike 2.
Kanye’s 9 minute rendition of one of his bullshit 808s & Heartbreak songs (I make a bit of a dry-heave face every time the name of that pieceoshit album has to spew out of my mouth). I think it was called Heartless, which you must be, Mr. West, to make me listen to that sopping bucket of emo cumsock. Seriously. You were a genius pre-808s & Heart(gag)break, and a genius post-808s & Heart(blargh)break. Don’t take it too hard. You were grieving the loss of your mother and shit during the making of 808s and (PROJECTILE VOMIT EXORCIST STYLE FOR 20 MINUTES STRAIGHT!!!!)… moving on…
Strike 3 (THROUGH 11!!!!)
Niggas In Paris. Performed 1000 times in a row in place of an encore. Yeah. “????????” indeed. I’m exaggerating, but I wish I was joking altogether. Hey. Jay.‘Ye. YOU PLAYED N.I.P. 4 TIMES AT OUR SHOW AND 10 TIMES THE NEXT NIGHT AND DIDN’T EVEN PLAY WHY I LOVE YOU, MY FAVOURITE TRACK OFF OF WATCH THE THRONE, ONCE!!! What the fuck guys?! I love(d) N.I.P. from the first time I heard it. The spark was gone though around the fourth consecutive performance of it. Just… what?! I mean, twice, I get. You’re having fun, it’s a fan favourite, the crowd’s hot. But TEN TIMES?! That’s some MJ mental meltdown, bizarre burka/baby-out-the-window type shit! And this was not the first time this happened. Apparently the amount of times the song was performed kept increasing through the tour, Vancouver just had the ‘fortune’ of being where it reached critical mass. I mean, Rolling Stone did a fucking expose on the song and your strange behaviour. Like they were keeping tabs on a fucking epidemic or charting a natural disaster or watching Tom Cruise couch-jump for love and Level 7 Bio-Hubbard Alien Supremacy and shit. Ah, but I don’t need to tell you all this shit Jigga. It’s not like U Don’t Know. You say it yourself in the song, verse one: “Ball so hard, this shit weird.” You ain’t kiddin’, Hov. No matter how much I wish you were.
The Break’s Over
Look. I’m not tryin’ to throw rocks at the Roc or suggest you vacate The Throne. The album’s dope, your solo back catalogs are dope, the show is dope. You guys are dope. I just hope you don’t forget how you rose to power. By never standing still. Never repeating yourselves. Take cues from Kanye’s creativity, but take direction from Jay. Takeover. In fact, you should take inspiration from one of his songs in particular. Next time forget about Niggas In Paris and remember…
Tomorrow: MOTHERFUCKIN’ PRINCE!!!!!!!
– Nuv
