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It was a beautiful thing to witness: two young people in love, gazing into each other’s eyes as they belted out the words sung by their hero up on stage. They were standing so close to me you could almost feel the heat of their collective ardour. To be honest, they looked so cute together, so sunny and icky and Love’s Young Dream that it’s more than likely they were singing in perfect two-part harmony without even knowing it. But something just felt a bit odd.

Maybe it was the fact that it was Chris Martin and Gwyneth Paltrow. Perhaps it was because it was the Jay-Z gig at the Royal Albert Hall last night, and the words they were belting out were, “I’ve got 99 problems but a bitch ain’t one!” But it was probably just Gwynie’s dancing.

It was a big night for her, to be fair, which was probably why she was holding her head and rocking back and forth like a mentalist all the way through H To The Izzo. Maybe she was just nervous about getting up on stage and singing with Jay – but we’ll get to that in a minute.

It was an amazing spectacle, “the show of the year” as all the tabloids will be calling it. There was Jay-Z, obviously, and Memphis Bleek. Then Nas came on and did three songs (I Made You Look, If I Ruled The World, Don’t Hate Me Now) and blew Jay away – he had loads more energy, and seemed to create a much bigger presence over the slightly tinny sound system. There was plenty of debate over who was better, so I asked Tim Westwood, who happened to be sat next to us. “I’ve always been a Jay-Z fan,” he said. Fool.

Then Nas and Jay did Dead Presidents, with Chris Martin playing piano. Was this a hip-hop gig or a Heat party? In case the answer was in any doubt, Gwyneth got up and sang backing vocals on Song Cry, at which point it was officially the least ‘street’ hip-hop gig ever. Jay-Z’s transformation from hustler to CEO to host of The Royal Variety Performance was complete.

Martin came back to sing on Ain’t No Love (In The Heart Of The City), and then Beyoncé turned up, looked extraordinarily beautiful, did Crazy In Love and Déja Vu, and thundered off again. At which point everyone was exhausted.

On stage throughout was a massive string orchestra, led by my new favourite fantasy: a fit female conductor with long brown hair down her back, wearing enormous heels and hold-ups (probably), gracefully directing everyone with smooth sweeps of her baton. Happy days.

So, to conclude, I’ll split the summary in two. For the hip-hop heads, Nas was awesome, Jay was great, I Just Wanna Love You reminded everyone how good The Neptunes used to be, and Encore, predictably enough for the encore, was a fitting finale. For the Heat readers, Gwyneth’s nanny was also there. I asked her who was looking after Apple. She said they got a babysitter in.

http://www.arenamagazine.co.uk/

28/09/2006