Eminem Rocks New Orleans' Voodoo Fest With First Full Concert of 2009

Eminem Rocks New Orleans' Voodoo Fest With First Full Concert of 2009
Rapper sounded strong as crowd braved the mud-soaked elements.
By Gil Kaufman, with additional reporting by Matthew Bowes

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Eminem fans braved mud, rain and high winds over the weekend to catch the rapper's only full concert of 2009 thus far. (He played a 35-minute set in Detroit in May.) Taking the stage at the Voodoo Festival on Friday night — nine years after his first appearance at the gathering — Slim Shady played with a full band (dressed in glow-in-the-dark skeleton costumes) for most of the set, hitting fans with a bevy of his biggest hits, opening with the homicidal "3 A.M." and asking fans, "Did you miss me? I missed you too, man. It's been a minute, huh, New Orleans?"

The kind words likely did little to warm the crowd, which was standing in a mud bog created by an earlier downpour that afternoon, as well as temperatures that dipped below freezing by showtime, which reportedly put a damper on the typically robust last-minute walk-up sales at the three-day event.

Voodoo Music Festival In New Orleans

Wearing a black hoodie over a white T-shirt and black jeans, Em ran through "Hello," "Kill You," "The Real Slim Shady," "The Way I Am," "We Made You," "Superman," "Cleaning Out My Closet" and "Stan," freestyling lyrics on the latter to make it about an obsessed fan he met in New Orleans.

The show featured a series of cameos from Em's D12 crew on songs including "My Band" and "Purple Pills." It included a tribute to the rapper's late bandmate and best friend, DeShaun "Proof" Holton, who he referred to as "the real singer of the band" as a giant image of the late MC was projected on the big LED screen behind him.

The segment, the first joint appearance by the Detroit crew in nearly five years, also found Em — who chronicled his struggle with prescription pills on Relapse — joking about his formerly drug-abusing ways, recalling a time in Amsterdam when he was in haze before breaking into a slightly re-tooled version of "Under the Influence."

The upbeat, fast-paced 75-minute set ended with the one-two punch of "Without Me" and a rousing run through his ambition anthem, "Lose Yourself."

The festival also featured sets from Kiss, Jane's Addiction, the Flaming Lips, Justice, the Black Keys, Wolfmother, Silversun Pickups, Gogol Bordello and Lenny Kravitz.


http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1625294/20091102/eminem.jhtml