PLAY BY PLAY - JAY Z & MARY TOUR

DISCLAIMER - If you haven't gone to the concert yet & don't wanna know what happened play by play then continue on to the next post.

Thursday, DJ Keyz & I arrive at Nassau Coliseum & we get to our seats at 7:28 pm & at 7:31 pm the lights go out because The Dream's performance is about to start. Dream & his dancers come out to very limited space. Imagine your elementary school play & the color guards come out holding the flags & the closed curtain is behind them. Well, that's the amount of room that they had to perform. Although only 25% of the audience were seated, Dream still had them rocking. He performed Shawty Is A Ten, I Luv Your Girl & Falsetto. At 7:49 pm his performance was a wrap & we're watching the late-comers rush into their seats.

At 8:13 pm, the lights go out & the two screens (on the left & right side of the stage) came on with Mary & Jay talking about each other & Jay Z finishing up saying that when he heard her song, Not Gon' Cry, that he realized how dope she is as an artist. The screens went off & the crowd started screaming as we looked at the top of the stage to see Jay & Mary's silhouette with their backs against each other. They came down the stage & they performed Can't Knock The Hustle. After the song was done, Jay Z ran off stage to let Mary do her thing. Mary kicked it off with All I Need but only did the chorus. She went into Reminisce, All Night Long & I'm The Only Woman. She then went into Real Love & halfway through it, the beat changes into the remix & out comes Jay Z running from the back to do Biggie's verse, "Look up in the sky it's a bird it's a plane.............". As soon as he says "My time is up, peace out to Brooklyn", he takes off his hat & throws it into the crowd & causes mayhem. After he leaves the stage, Mary continues to perform You Bring Me Joy, Be Happy, Sweet Thing, Love No Limit, Natural Woman, Stay Down & My Life. She does No More Drama & murders the whole song while stomping all over the stage & singing on her knees crying. She then continues into her depressed stage & sung Not Gon' Cry, & Your Child. The band starts to play I'm Going Down & as the crowd goes crazy, she points her microphone into the crowd & everyone sung the first two verses. She finished off the third verse herself & then does MVP (song over Game & 50's Hate It Or Love It beat). The instrumental to Kanye's Flashing Lights came on as Mary & two dancers started voguing as the lights flashed on them during the chorus. Mary then goes into her happier times & does more recent songs like Work That, Enough Cryin, Just Fine & Be With You.

She says Thank You, walks off the stage & at 9:32 pm, the screens come back on. Mary says that her favorite Jay song is Can't Knock The Hustle but not because she's on it. The screen goes off & Say Hello comes on & we see Jay at the top of the stage. As he comes down the stairs, the screen shows members of the mafia walking as Jay does the song. He goes into Roc Boys, I Know & Give It To Me. He does Show Me What You Got & has everyone waving from side to side & points out a guy waving wrong & tells the band to stop playing the music & tells everyone to stop waving (and they did). He tells the guy to get it right so they can continue and he does. He moves on to No Hook & Can I Live. He calls Memphis Bleek out & Bleek adlibs as Jay does You Don't Know & 99 Problems and then he leaves the stage. Jay goes into Excuse Me Miss and when that's done, Mary walks out & sings the chorus when Jay does Song Cry & then Mary exits. He goes into Pray, Jigga What Jigga Who, Jigga, H to the Izzo, Can I Get A, Dirt Off Your Shoulder, PDA, Blue Magic & then stops the band. He walks over to the dj booth while his dj, Neil Armstrong moves over so Jay can see what he wants to play next, testing the crowd to see how hype they can get. I have no idea why Green Lantern wasn't the dj but hey. So Hov presses the button on the playback machine & plays Feelin It. As we're yelling & getting into it, Jay says "Fuck That", & goes into the next song which is "Aint No Nigga". Plays maybe 8 seconds of that & then says, "Fuck That", & continues to tease the crowd. So then he continues doing the same thing after every 5-8 seconds of a song flying through them one after the next.... Streets Is Watching, Best Of Me (rmx), Money Aint A Thing, Hard Knock Life, Where I'm From, Brooklyn's Finest & Lucifer. He then plays his wifey's song, Crazy In Love & the crowd all happen to make that "Oh Shit" noise knowing that he can't say Fuck That to her song, so he lets the song rock a lil longer than the other songs & then says, "Sorry B, but Fuck That". He then goes through the songs faster & plays Jigga That Nigga, Fiesta, Upgrade You, 30 Something & Is That Yo Chick. He decides to stop fuckin with the audience & finds the song he wants to perform which is Big Pimpin & as it comes on & he tests the crowd by pointing his microphone at the crowd & has us all do the first verse & the chorus. He goes into Encore & then leaves the stage when its done. The lights go out & Jay disappears like usual & the crowd chants Hova, Hova, but he doens't seem to be coming back out. Then after 10 seconds, the light comes on at the top of the stage & we see both Mary & Jay. They do Ain't No Love (Heart Of The City) & that's when I knew it was about to be over because that's the name of the tour. So they knock it out & say thanks to the crowd & the lights come back on as they walk off stage. I enjoyed the hell out of myself & will see it done again when they come to the Garden in May. Nick has the videos that kinda match my play by play to the exact moments (we went to two different shows). Sorry if you weren't able to get tix & I hope I did this long ass write up did some justice for you. Peace.