Last night (March 24), Mary J. Blige and Jay-Z graced the city of Orlando with their presence delivering a great performance. While the show wasn’t sold out, Orlando did come out and show some love to New York City’s finest.

The Dream opened the show with Shorty is a 10 accompanied by four lady dancers. For some reason, the performance reminded me of an X rated high school talent show. I understand The Dream is supposed to be a sultry R&B singer but those girls were practically masterbating on stage! MOVING ON…

After a lengthy 20 minute intermission (and a sighting of NY Knick great, Patrick Ewing enjoying the show), the lights went down and an interview of Mary J and Jay-Z explaining the birth of the “Heart of the City Tour” flashed across the jumbo screens. Jay-Z and Mary J then emerged and performed “Can’t Knock the Hustle”.

Jay left Mary onstage to deliver a 5-star performance. Mary took us on a walk down memory lane belting out quite a few songs from her My Life album. The show was exactly what you would expect from Mary (tears, her trademark holy ghost dance, and finger snapping, hip swaying, feel good music). She was onstage for most of the concert. I ain’t mad. Next up, O-My-God HOV!

Jay-Z opened his set with “Say Hello” but quickly jumped right into “Roc Boys”. One of the most notable things about Jay-Z’s performance happened while performing “Blue Magic”. In his lyrics he states “…money over broads, you got it? Fuck Bush!” At that moment (as Dos Un posted earlier) a big picture of our wonderful President Bush was displayed on the screen where Jay-Z threw up his middle finger and encouraged the crowd to follow suit. While asking the crowd if they were ready for change, the picture switched to Senator Barack Obama which forced the crowd to erupt with cheers. Other than that, I feel that Jay wasn’t onstage as long as he could have or should have been but I was happy to have seen him rock the house nonetheless.

And just when the crowd thought it was over, Jay and Mary returned to the stage to perform “Heart of the City (Ain’t No Love)”. Great ending to the evening. Given there were no guest performers, and they performed in a not so major city, the show was AMAZING!! I can only imagine what it will be like when they actually perform in THE HEART OF THE CITY… NYC get ready cuz here they come!

Pictures courtesy of the Orlando Sentinel.