Jay Z @ Oxegen Friday Night

For starters, we’re interested to see how the gig is received in an open air environment. Live hip hop traditionally works best in a club, not a huge muddy field and we’re thinking this could either be a car crash or an utter triumph. As a huge clock counts down to announce his arrival (which was awfully considerate of him after leaving us standing in the pissing rain for 20 minutes waiting for him to appear) he goes straight into ‘Run This Town’ and the field explodes with movement. Backed by a muscular band who give the songs a rock feel, Jay goes straight for the jugular, dropping huge tracks like ‘On To The Next One’ and ’99 Problems’ early in the set while free-styling in between songs too.

Surprisingly he performs the epic ‘Empire State Of Mind’ quite early instead of ending with it, and while we feel the rapper robbed us a little by burying the track in the set, it’s still a huge moment. While at times the show is a little cheesy (we could do without the “Ireland feels like my second home” type schtick) we can happily forgive him tonight as his show was nothing short of a triumph.