Jay-Z at 1st Mariner Arena

HOVA!

As referenced below, last night the Kleinette and the Kleiner journeyed north to Baltimore - you know, that actual city? with the tall buildings 'n' stuff? - to see Jay-Z perform at the 1st Mariner Arena. The Kleiner, who frankly must confess to having something of a man-crush on Jay, came away very impressed with the performance, as did the Kleinette. Although we came away less impressed with the venue, all-in-all expect what follows to be a pretty positive overall report.

The first thing to know about Jay-Z as a performer is his preternatural command over an audience. The intensity of his charisma really shines through on-stage, and he clearly has a natural gift for between-song banter, stage timing, and soliciting audience participation. Beyond that, though, he has a broader and rarer gift for managing the ebb and flow in pulse and energy of a crowd over the course of an evening that goes further than just a well-structrured set-list, knowing when to flow through three songs at once or when to quip, knowing when the audience is ready to party and when not to. Especially with having a full live band behind him (guitar, bass, two drums, two keyboards, a DJ, and three horns), and with clutch assists from Memphis Bleek and Pharrell Williams of N.E.R.D. (who also opened) he seemed really able to play with moments perfectly.

He did it with the flow.

The set-list is pretty much money, and though there's always that one song you wish an artist would perform that they didn't ("Off That"), he struck a strong balance between his new (and, IMHO, excellent) album and his greatest hits, opening with "Run This Town" (mercifully sans Kanye's awful verse) and "D.O.A. (Death of Auto-Tune)" and transitioning well into older stuff like "Can I Get A..." and "I Just Wanna Love U (Give It 2 Me)." He would sometimes pepper in single verses of songs ("Izzo [H.O.V.A.]," which is gangbusters with live instruments, as was "99 Problems," especially with the relatively weak third verse dropped) or even just a chorus ("Venus vs. Mars"), using them as transitions between full tracks. Other times he would play around with the backbeat, building up "A Star Is Born" from next to nothing; and in perhaps my personal favorite moment of the show, he dropped the backing from "Thank You" entirely, performing the sadistically brilliant final verse entirely a cappella (letting the audience throw in the second "ill").


The best moments overall, though, were either "Big Pimpin'," when Jay cuts off the band right before the first verse, claims that "Big Pimpin' is no ordinary record...it's a cultural phenomenon...we need a carinval here!" and made the audience swirl shirts, jackets, etc in a flurry of whirlwind motion; or simply the exceptionally enthusiastic and moving performance of "Empire State of Mind" with a wonderful live female guest vocalist whose name I didn't catch subbing in for Alicia Keys, a special treat to see the night before Jay will perform it to open the World Series. It actually brought out the lighters, something I haven't seen at a concert in some time - it's nice to know that the cell phones haven't fully replaced them.

America's largest concrete shoebox

All told, it was a delightfully and grandiosely masterful performance by one of the most popular American mucisians of all time (who wasn't shy about sharing it - after noting that with The Blueprint 3 he was now second in career #1 albums only to The Beatles, he declared: "Elvis has officially left the building!"). Not so much excellent as fascinating anachronistic was the 1st Mariner Arena, definitively an artifact of an era when architecture seemed to collectively neglect the needs and desires of actual human beings. Nothing so much as an enormous off-white concrete shoebox, the facility gives new meaning to the word "sparse" - it offered almost nothing in terms of anemities, decor, or anything remotely resembling personality. It reminded me of everything we New Yorkers disliked about Shea Stadium, except without most of the things we liked.

Now, the 1st Mariner Arena faces the unique challenge of not playing host to a single major professional sports franchise, which robs the facility of the opportunity to blast team spirit. But look at this picture of the halls:

This is representative of pretty much the entire arena - the walls are concrete, painted white, and feature no decor and no advertisements. The latter suprises me even more - given that the arena still plays host to a number of popular concerts, one would think that open wall-space would prove at least a marginally worthwhile commercial opportunity. Yet the walls are blank. It's almost a little creepy, especially with the odd double-doors at each entrance into the arena proper and the dearth of concessions windows (a makeshift bar, not unlike what one would find at a college house party, was set up at the hallway's midpoint). The arena's entire existence seems predicated on a single proposition - that, given a prime lot in downtown Baltimore, you could successfully bring people to see events in a big empty box that offers pretty much nothing - being put into practice. And to their credit, it works - you can sell out a Jay-Z concert in a big empty box! It's just, you know, still going to be a big empty box. And one with no handrails on the bleacher stairs, which definitely gave the Kleiner a bit of vertigo.

Uno, dos, tres, catorce!

Also, take this bit of advice: NEVER EVER PARK AT THE 1ST MARINER ARENA'S PARKING GARAGE. I've had more miserable event-exit experiences, but they were all in either horrible, horrible nightmares or The Tweeter Center.

Anyone else been to any events at the 1st Mariner lately? Care to share some thoughts?

-The Kleiner