Roc Boys Night Out In Chicago

Anyone who was able to attend the second stop on Jay-Z’s “American Gangster” tour. Wow.

Seriously, if you live in Chicago and you missed it. You lost. You really lost.

Other than the fact that most attendees had to wait over an hour and a half outside in this beautiful Chicago weather*, this concert really couldn’t have been much better.

The crowd was crazy and people claimed to have paid upwards of $600 per ticket. I know that the Rocafella Records website reported that the Chicago show sold out in 8 seconds, but I’d like to know who actually was able to purchase one of these tickets in 8 seconds…It seemed everyone I talked to had to go through an independent broker for them. Hmmm…

Jay took the stage around 12:30am and rocked until 2:00am with a 12 piece band. Never one to let his fans down, Hova brought out the (remaining) Roc Boys: Memphis Bleek, Beanie Sigel and Freeway to perform hits such as “Roc Da Mic” and “You, Me, Him, Her”.

I guess I forgot how deep Jigga’s catalogue runs; he really could have played all night and well into the morning. The crowd was lucky enough to hear a lot of American Gangster and hits such as “Jigga My…”, “PSA”, “What More Can I Say”, and “Excuse Me Miss”.

Sadly, he did nothing from Reasonable Doubt, Vol. 1 or 2, but he did let the crowd perform the entire first verse to “Big Pimpin” before exiting the stage.

Now I’d heard rumblings from an insider that Jay was going to bring out a “very special guest” for his Chicago performance, but when Jigga emerged for his “Encore” to the instrumental from “Diamonds from Sierra Leone”, it was pretty obvious who was coming out.

The hometown hero, Kanye West emerged from backstage and did an impromptu performance of “Can’t Tell Me Nothing” and “Goodlife”. INSANITY!

Easily the highlight of the night was when all of the Roc Boys (sans Beans?) gathered on stage for the evenings (er…mornings) closer: “Roc Boys”. All seems well with Roc, at least it did last night. The video is above.