“We’re going to go until like 5 a.m., so don’t be scared,” said Jay-Z not long after he started the third and final show of his Yankee Stadium residency on Sunday night, the concluding chapter to a weekend that paid homage to the 25th and 30th anniversaries of his seminal albums “The Blueprint” and “Reasonable Doubt,” respectively. The remark was made around 1 a.m, roughly 40 minutes after he started a concert that had been plagued by hours-long delays as fans waited both inside the stadium and on the perimeter of the venue, stuck in lines that didn’t budge. Surely, the 5 a.m. comment was made in jest — it had to be, right?
Indeed, it was, but not entirely far off from when the curtain was lowered at 3 a.m. on the trio of shows that reinforced the majesty of Jay-Z across a nearly three-hour spectacle. The Sunday night concert, added after the initial pair was announced and billed as “Extra Innings,” suggested that Jay was free to explore his catalog without centering an entire performance on one specific album. Speculation flew over what the night would constitute: the release and premiere of a new record, as suggested by Beyoncé buzzing off his hair — a self-care act that typically marks the end of a Jay-Z recording cycle — in a video shown at the start of both the first and third nights? A B-sides show not unlike the one he played at Webster Hall in 2015? A no-holds-barred parade of guests and hits that he hadn’t revisited in the nights prior?
