June 1, 2014 marked the 2014 Summer Jam music festival hosted by Hot 97 at MetLife Stadium in New Jersey. This was my first year attending Summer Jam and the first time I had really been to a music festival of this caliber. I had no idea what to expect other than the advertised set of artists. Certain aspects of the show exceeded my expectations. I hate the word epic but it was pretty epic.
First of all: I was really only expecting (and excited) to see a select few among all of these that were advertised to be there such as Wayne, Nicki, 50 Cent, Wiz Khalifa, The Roots, Childish Gambino, Jhene Aiko, Nas and Iggy Azalea.
What I was not expecting is that basically every artist relevant in music today (and 10 years ago..*cough* G-UNIT *cough*) would show up and make an appearance.
First there was the festival stage. Notable performers included Iggy Azalea, Jhene Aiko, Childish Gambino and others that people basically used as alcohol breaks. Iggy was Iggy, she had a lot of energy and no one really paid attention until ‘Fancy’ which she ended with. She did have dancers which is always fun to see on stage. I was most looking forward to see Jhene and Childish perform ‘Bed Peace’ together, which they did and it was fantastic. Jhene looked flawless and I immediately want to copy her entire wardrobe. I was skeptical about how Jhene would sound live but she surprised me and I was really impressed by her performance. Childish killed it as well. My only wish is that he would have done some of this older stuff like ‘Heartbeat’ or ‘Freaks and Geeks’ but each artist really only had time to do 3 or 4 songs for their set.
After some tailgating, parking lot loitering, and almost getting punched in the face by a drunk bitch who was unaware of how to act at concerts…we finally made our way up about 6 stories to our seats in MetLife Stadium. For how much we spent on tickets they should’ve thrown in a pair of binoculurs because damn…we were FAR. Although! After being in the pit for the majority of concerts it was nice to have a seat and not live in fear of being suffocated or elbowed in the face.
Action Bronson had a good set. The cameras mostly focused on his choice to perform barefoot. Then there was Wiz Khalifa. I’ve seen Wiz in concert before and he’s actually a really good performer. Then came the first surprise of the evening when he brought out Snoop Dogg.(!!!) Which was awesome.
I’m not going to mull on the rest of the performers. Nas was there and brought out French Montana and Meek Mill. Meek KILLED IT. Anytime he does ‘Dreams and Nightmares’ the crowd is guaranteed to go off. Trey Songz came out and killed it per usual. He even threw in a little “Free Breezy” chant (UPDATE: Chris Brown was released from jail the very next day so obviously it was because of our chant). Somewhere in there as a G-Unit reunion which, ok, was pretty cool. There were about 85 people on stage at this point and I really had no idea what 50 Cent was saying but G-Unit was there. He didn’t do ‘In Da Club’ which upset me, but I couldn’t be upset for long because pretty soon Nicki Minaj came out.
Nicki did her amazing rendition of ‘Boss Ass Bitch’ followed by her verses from ‘Monster’, and ‘Up All Night’. She also performed ‘Did it on ’em’ which is one of my forgotten favorites. At one point even Soulja Boy came out to assist in performing their new song ‘Yass Bitch’ (yes the actual name of the song).
THEN!!!!!!! Nicki says she has an announcement..she proceeds to talk about a certain member of YMCMB that she is very angry at…how they used to be cool but not anymore because…MF’ers never loved her………………….
YES. OMG. DRAKE!!!!! Drake came out guns blazing and performed ‘Worst Behavior’. He did some other songs too but by that point everything had become a euphoric blur of screaming and crying and a little bit of hyperventilating. (I love Drake. if you couldn’t tell)
Eventually Wayne came out, did ‘Believe Me’ with Drake, and his part of ‘Loyal’.
At that point…nothing else mattered and nothing was the same, so we left.
Here is a list of basically everyone that was there:
Jhene Aiko, Iggy Azalea, Childish Gambino, Trey Songz, Nicki Minaj, Lil Wayne, Drake, Soulja Boy, Kid Ink, Mack Wilds, Chinx, August Alsina, Snoop Dogg, Nas, Meek Mill, French Montana, The Roots, 50 Cent, G-unit, Fabolous, Nipsey Hussle, The Lox, Yo Gotti, Ty Dolla $ign, DJ Mustard, A$AP Ferg, ad more that I can’t remember.
I also really enjoyed Jersey so Summer Jam may become an annual thing.
What Sarah Says 