Ideally every good summer music festival is filled with one or two moments where everyone there can't help but shake off the cobwebs of cynicism and think to themselves, "Now this is what it's all about." It's pretty safe to say that Jay-Z did just that for a few thousand people last night at All Points West, performing the takeover just as the rain cleared to begin his first American festival appearance with a cover of "No Sleep Til Brooklyn." We admit to needing a video like the one below to do just that for those of us stuck listening to APW coverage on rock radio stations suddenly caring about Jay, accompanied by DJs using it as a chance to show off their emcee skills and explain the rapper's importance due to his collaborations with The Killers, Jack White and Linkin Park. Alas, Jigga to the rescue:
Jay-Z dedicated his entire set to the Beasties' Adam Yauch (MCA), whose recent diagnosis with cancer forced the legendary New York hip-hop group to pull out as Friday's headliners. He also paid tribute to Michael Jackson during the roc(k)-heavy set, telling the crowd not to make the song cry but rather, “If you take one thing from this concert, remember this: We don’t mourn death, we celebrate life.”
And despite a classic mud pit created by Friday's storms, the rain led festival organizers to allow Friday ticket holders to attend today's or tomorrow's show. You can relive the classic concert moment from a couple more angles after the jump—Brooklyn Vegan joked that Hova's intro may have been a tease to Garden State fans, whose basketball team he's been trying to hustle over to Downtown Brooklyn for most of this decade.
