As promised, Kanye West played the VEVO Power Station in Austin last night at midnight, closing out SXSW. As not promised, Jay-Z — along with ‘Ye’s G.O.O.D. Music crew members John Legend, Pusha-T, Kid Cudi, and Justin Vernon — showed up. And as you can see in this reasonable fan footage of “H.A.M.†and “Monster,†at this point Kanye and Jay seem to really love being on the same stage together. We’re basing this observation on their nifty choreographed arm-raising during “Monster,†plus the way Kanye insists on rapping Jay’s “H.A.M.†verse with him face-to-face — but, really, doesn’t the fact that they always seem to bring each other to their biggest shows say it all? (Kanye basically opened Jay’s Yankee Stadium gigs with him.) Between the performances and the Watch the Throne sessions, they spend more time together than we do with some people we call “friends†— but Jay and Kanye are rich and famous and actually have better stuff to do! As Kanye’s “Big Brother†attests, friendships with your heroes can get a little strange when you’re at a particular level of success. But, somehow, these two seem to pull it off. Kind of gives you a nice warm feeling.
