For Krug it’s worth it. He is responsible for many of the concerts at Yankee Stadium and says that between the NYCFC baseball and soccer matches and the venue’s hosts, he can only arrange one or two a year, usually a major artist like Paul McCartney or Madonna. “So that’s one of the reasons that we’re a little bit, say, selective or particular about who we are,” he says, “because we really want to make sure that we have the best artist for the small window that we have.”
Like the Knicks’ win, the World Cup, and maybe even Swift’s wedding, Jay-Z’s memorial day shows show an appreciation for IRL events, the shared experience of watching live music or an NBA team’s ticker tape parade.
A a recent survey and the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra found that 78 percent of respondents believed live performance was the one art form where “AI will not touch human creativity.” Meanwhile, artists like Phoebe Bridgers are also there choose shows without smartphones to book their closest concerts.
The mini-residency is also the latest in a series of local events planned for the anniversary of Reasonable suspicion and Drawing. In the lead up to the Yankee Stadium concert, Jay-Z teamed up with Spotify to capture parts of the New York City subway, working with the Brooklyn Public Library on the special “JAŸ-Z30”. library cardsand set up a pop-up shop in Dumbo in a warehouse that had been illuminated video to “Dead Presidents.”
People are hungry for truth, says Isra Ali, a professor of media, culture, and communication at NYU Steinhardt, and in that environment, “the value of face-to-face communication is rising.” Jay-Z’s anniversary shows, then, are a chance for one of the biggest, seemingly untouchable artists in the world to connect with the home crowd.
