Don’t miss epic throwback festival Friday Jams Live
Siena Yates tells you why you can't miss epic throwback festival Friday Jams Live
THE BASS is pounding through the walls, Naughty By Nature just walked past with their crew and I’m up on a chair, taping a tablecloth to a makeshift wall.
Someone nicks a couple of giant pot plants from outside Usher’s dressing room, we cover the tables, rearrange the furniture and hope for the best.
When our first superstar, Estelle walks in to film interviews, you can barely even tell that — with just a bit of Kiwi ingenuity, a few resources and a heroic Maccas run to fuel us — we’ve slapped together our entire set at a moment’s notice.
Why the hustle? Put simply: Friday Jams is a massive moving beast.
We’re talking 150 artists and international crew, including 10 of the biggest names in hip-hop and R&B. And more than 500 staff and 200 security personnel will be at the Auckland event site, which is being built at Western Springs as you read this.
On top of all that, said beast has a lot of ground to cover in very little time. When we catch the tour in Melbourne on a Saturday, they’ve come straight from a show in Perth the night before and will fly out the following morning for a show in Adelaide the night after so it’s perform, sleep, fly, repeat and it’s not slowing down any time soon — they’ll be in New Zealand by Sunday.
It is hectic to say the least, but whereas the crew are as stressed as anything, the artists are going with the flow surprisingly well.
Salt-N-Pepa exchange high fives with Lil Jon in the lift; Fatman Scoop is walking around shirtless, cracking jokes and asking people where they got their shoes; Usher strolls past surrounded by his posse; Ginuwine is in the stands with his, dancing while Eve performs; Estelle shares her greenroom snacks with me and Eve indulges me in a quick chat in the middle of a hallway.
They really are just hanging out, doing their thing — a thing some of them have been doing for longer than many of their fans have been alive. These are legends of their genres, and the level of stardom and respect is palpable, even if none of them will take it seriously.
Both Eve and Estelle talk about
being surrounded by legends and history-makers, although both of them laugh at the thought of including themselves in that. Even Salt-N-Pepa — trailblazers of hiphop, and in particular, for women in hiphop — shrug their shoulders and laugh off the praise.
Good music, they all say, is good music. And that’s all there is to it.
They’re not wrong. Away from all the dressing rooms, catering and star power, there are 50,000 fans screaming their hearts out on the stadium floor.
There is an insane kind of atmosphere, one you won’t get at an Ed Sheeran or Taylor Swift show — not yet anyway.
It’s the kind of atmosphere you get only when thousands of people come together, united by the songs they’ve loved for lifetimes, who built memories to the same soundtracks, who have known the dance moves and sung the words for decades.
In a rare festival feat, every single artist is a headliner in their own right. Each of them has at least a handful of major hits that set the crowd alight.
Even the DJs and the filler music between sets keep the party going with throwback tracks and new hip-hop hits and every time you think it’s safe to take a toilet break, something will inevitably make someone say “but this is my song!”
Like Salt-NPepa say: “Classics are classics, and when do you not wanna hear a classic?”