Críticas e imágenes: «Legends Of The Summer» en Baltimore, 8 de ago.

El jueves, la ciudad de Baltimore tuvo la suerte de acoger por primera vez en años un concierto de estadio, el «Legends Of The Summer», a pesar de la lluvia ocasional. Justin Timberlake y Jay-Z visitaron el M&T Bank Stadium uno de los 12 estadios que el dúo habrá visitado cuando termine la gira.

«Legends Of The Summer», M&T Bank Stadium, Baltimore +19 imágenes

Live Review: Jay-Z and Justin Timberlake

It was just Baltimore’s luck that Thursday, the first day the city would host an all-too-rare stadium concert in years, would be plagued by foreboding clouds and occasional rain. But things had finally cleared up, for the most part, by the time Jay-Z and Justin Timberlake arrived onstage at M&T Bank Stadium for their co-headlining «Legends of the Summer» tour, which will have stopped in only 12 cities when it wraps up next week.

And even when it did rain, there was an eerie perfection to its timing: an hour into the show, as Jay-Z was performing the fan favorite «Public Service Announcement», the first light raindrops started to fall within seconds of him rapping, «Whenever there’s a drought/Get your umbrellas out, because that’s when I brainstorm». Ironically, there were no umbrellas in the audience — M&T security not allowing them in, and piles of confiscated umbrellas were languishing at the entrance gates at that moment.

When it finally did begin to truly rain, 20 minutes later, Timberlake was in the midst of his solo portion of the set. The raindrops reflected in the lights beamed out into the audience during «LoveStoned/I Think She Knows» caught the singer’s eye, and he smiled and repeated, «This rain is right on time». The rain continued as he performed two moody ballads, including one of his signature songs, «Cry Me A River», which famously opens with rain sound effects. Then the rain promptly ceased as he transitioned into uptempo material, as if it was just another perfectly planned moment in this impeccably choreographed stage show.

Jay-Z and Justin Timberlake were onstage, either together or individually, for 140 seamless minutes on Thursday, with no opening act, intermission, or even encore break. They may not bring out the best in each other creatively — the concert was bookended by their two recent hit collaborations, Jay-Z’s boorish «Holy Grail» and Timberlake’s corny «Suit & Tie» — but as tourmates they fit together surprisingly well. Combining multiple superstar acts for a package tour is not exactly a novel idea, but it’s rare that two co-headliners are such a well-matched yin and yang, without one act outshining the other or any apparent ego-driven competition getting in the way of cooperation (such as, say, when Jay-Z’s 2004 tour with R. Kelly ended in disaster). That this duo is a singer and a rapper, one white and one black, with over ten years’ age difference, makes the effectiveness of the pairing all the more impressive.

«Holy Grail», a song that sounds like it was written for stadium shows and very well may have been, sounded far better in this context than it does on the radio. After opening with the song, the pair yelled «Baltimore, make some noise!» and proceeded to pump out dozens of their best known songs. Although they never collaborated significantly before this year, Jay-Z and Timberlake have several common musical links, particularly in that many of their respective hits have been crafted with the same two Virginia-based production powerhouses, Timbaland and The Neptunes. All of the songs Timberlake performed on Thursday, and about one third of the songs Jay-Z performed, were produced by one or the other, which served as the sonic glue linking their very different discographies.

Timberlake’s recent single «Tunnel Vision» gradually geared down to a slower BPM at the end, until it morphed into another Timbaland production, Jay-Z’s speed rap masterpiece «Jigga What, Jigga Who». Timberlake jumped in to help out on several of Jay-Z’s hits, singing the hooks to «I Just Wanna Love U (Give It 2 Me)» and «Excuse Me Miss» that were originally performed by The Neptunes’ Pharrell Williams.

Already this year, the pair have individually released the two biggest selling albums of 2013 so far, Timberlake’s The 20/20 Experience and Jay-Z’s Magna Carta…Holy Grail, and although neither is remotely the artist’s best work, they’re happily reaping the rewards of longevity. Both men are among the only, if not the only, figures in popular music who have enjoyed consistent multi-platinum success for the past 15 years — Jay-Z’s first blockbuster album was released in 1998, the same year that Timberlake’s career-launching boy band ‘N Sync burst onto the scene. Of course, Timberlake never touched on those early days in his set on Thursday, drawing just from his three solo albums, as well as «Take Back The Night», the regrettably titled single from his fourth album due next month. With such a small discography, Timberlake was able to perform all of his hits and then some, effectively fitting everything you could hope for in one of his solo concerts into this two-headed monstrosity.

Jay-Z, however, has a much larger, more varied catalog than Timberlake, with more hits than he’d be able to perform with a night all to himself. Always shrewdly aware of his surroundings, Hov didn’t fail to perform most of the pop hits that have long made him hip-hop’s most respected crossover success. Although Jay only sparingly played hypeman to Timberlake’s solo showcases, Timberlake often put in overtime to help accentuate his tourmate’s hits — he played guitar on «99 Problems», and did a mean Frank Sinatra impression, singing «New York, New York» before and after Jay-Z’s chart-topping hit «Empire State of Mind». But perhaps the best fusion of their talents was «Izzo (H.O.V.A.)», the 2001 single which features a sample of the Jackson 5’s «I Want You Back». Timberlake sang a few bars of the sample in tribute to his idol, Michael Jackson, before Jay-Z rapped about «Servin’ ‘em in the home of the Terrapins», a nod to his days of slinging drugs in Maryland, two decades before he’d be headlining a stadium in Baltimore.

Even in this environment, however, Jay-Z didn’t hold back entirely from giving his hardcore fans the show they’d want to see whether or not Timberlake was there. He never held back from swearing, and bombastic album tracks like «U Don’t Know» and «Encore» shook the stadium. And even some of his biggest chart hits tend to be dense with observational detail and social commentary, often about the paradox of being a rich black man in a white man’s world, which took on some particular poignancy in this context. Treacly 2009 single «Young Forever», perhaps the worst Jay-Z has ever released, was rendered surprisingly movingly as a closing duet with Timberlake in tribute to Trayvon Martin.

Sometimes the specter of race hovered over the proceedings awkwardly; in «99 Problems», when Jay-Z has a hostile exchange with a police officer, basically a stand-in for the racist white establishment prepared to hold back anyone who looks like him, it was Timberlake, the white R&B singer beloved by black radio, who played the cop. (During the Jay-Z/Kanye West «Watch the Throne» tour a couple years ago, West played the cop.)

The 18-piece band backing the duo did a fantastic job of bringing each catalog to life, even if they were often largely providing window dressing to the canned studio track, particular for Jay-Z’s songs. Minor singles like «Summer Love» and «On to the Next One» were enlivened by their arrangements. Timberlake’s songs were seldom drawn out to the overblown 7-minute suites of his last two albums, but were stretched out just enough to retain that relaxed, expansive mood. His biggest embellishments were often ad libbed rap lyrics over sections of his songs, like the line «Spending everything on Alexander Wang» from Kanye West’s «New Slaves» — an affectionate, if oddly chosen, tip of the hat after West criticized «Suit & Tie» earlier this year. But generally, it was an ill-advised habit — nobody really wants to hear the chorus of Juicy J’s strip club anthem «Bandz A Make Her Dance» in the middle of the dramatic «Cry Me A River».

Timberlake’s essential dorkiness can be both the best and worst thing about his stage persona. He often still seemed like the eager showbiz kid when showing off his many talents, switching from guitar to keyboard, pulling off a smooth dance step, or flaunting his falsetto on an inspired take of «Pusher Love Girl». But he held his own well enough alongside Jay-Z’s unflappable kingpin persona, and they entered and exited the stage as equals that afforded each other mutual respect, playing at implying a deeper friendship that may or may not be there. The temporary alignment of their brands functions well as a corporate merger, but on this particular night, it turned out to be a pretty appealing proposition for thousands of fans as well.

The Legends of the Summer Touch Down in Baltimore

The crowds that typically fill M&T Bank Stadium cheer for the team in purple and black as they try to subdue the opponent on the green gridiron. However, on Thursday night the home team of the evening whore black and white and displayed a very different kind of prowess on a stage awash in red.

Jay Z and Justin Timberlake’s 12-city co-headlining tour dubbed The Legends of the Summer arrived in Baltimore on a less-than-perfect weather day, which featured claps of thunder and thick dark clouds that hovered as the doors opened at 7:00 p.m.

In fact, many concertgoers were greeted with the residue of a recent rain shower as they arrived at their seats, but the mood was anything but damp as DJ Cassidy unleashed a relentless onslaught of dance music that lead right up to the 9:20 pm start of the main event.

Starting at opposite sides of the stage Justin and Jay Z kicked off the show with «Holy Grail», which is the lead song from the Brooklyn rapper’s latest Billboard chart-topping album, Magna Carta… Holy Grail. The song starts with Justin beautifully singing over a sparse piano arrangement as the tension slowly builds in the song then Jay Z comes in with his full-voiced verse as the beat drops. Now side-by-side in the center of the stage Jay Z and Justin rock back and forth with everyone in the stadium on their feet doing the same. The Tennessee Kids band adorned in all red energetically and deftly transitioned the two artists through a hand full of their hits at the outset including Justin’s «Give It To Me, Rock Your Body» then Jay Z’s «I Just Wanna Love U». The Tennessee Kids are anything but your step on two and hit your musical cue backup band. Their talent was showcased early on in the concert as Justin and Jay Z launched into an original «I Want You Back» Michael Jackson interlude and tribute. The Tennessee Kids recreated the 1969 Jackson 5 classic as Justin sang the choirs and Jay Z summoned the crowd to thrust two fingers in the air for the late great entertainment icon.

Jay Z and Justin spent a sizeable block of the concert on the stage alone. They integrated new material alongside tried and true songs, which frankly, for both artists generated the louder crowd responses throughout the evening. It was special to see both interact with the blended audience and with each other. For instance a particularly lucky recent graduate with a homemade sign received a shout out from both Jay Z and Justin at different times during the show. Justin improvised by rapping parts of his songs and Jay Z PG’d a handful of lyrics that did not compromise the integrity of the message. Both musicians recognize that this joint venture put them in front of each other’s audience and reasonable considerations were made to ensure an enjoyable experience for everyone.

There is a sensible critique that The Legends of the Summer tour is more a marketing room creation than a true musical collaboration. For those that believe that to be fact, you will not find a counter argument here. Jay Z and Justin Timberlake have created exactly two songs together, the aforementioned «Holy Grail» and «Suit and Tie». Both appear on each other’s current chart topping albums that were released ahead of this tour that precedes larger world tours that Jay Z and Justin will begin this coming fall. What I can tell you is I saw just as many people of all creeds and backgrounds wearing Mrs. Timberlake shirts as I saw wearing Brooklyn Nets hats and they all were singing or rapping along with the Tennessee Kid and the Brooklyn Boy. 50 summers removed from the March on Washington — that occurred less than an hour away from where the concert was held — and partially through one of the most racially divisive summers in recent memory it seems less than important where this idea originated. Boardroom or Studio, I don’t know if it the impetus matters behind the multicultural and intergenerational meeting that occurred on Thursday evening. There are several reasons why Memphis born Justin and Brooklyn born Shawn will never know what it is like to walk in one another’s shoes.

Nevertheless, we were all on one accord. As Justin and Jay Z closed out another sold out show, they ask the crowd (to use the same phones they used to Instagram pictures and post Facebook updates) to light up the Baltimore sky in tribute to fallen Florida teen Trayvon Martin as the two performed Jay Z’s «Forever Young». Not obviously to our racial dynamics, but through recognition they inspired hope.