Five Reasons Why Jay-Z’s Attendance At Yesterday’s Grizzly Bear Show Wasn’t All That Surprising

noah | August 31, 2009 11:00 am

Yesterday, the harmonizing, indie-kid-beloved Brooklyn band Grizzly Bear played an outdoor show on its home borough’s waterfront, and at around 6 p.m. Twitter lit up with news from the show—not about the band’s performance, mind you, but about the appearance of Jay-Z and his lady Beyonce in the crowd, as documented by the above blurry cameraphone shot. Reactions included “!!!” and “OMG” and “Dammit!”, but honestly, why were people surprised? Five reasons why you all should have seen this coming after the jump. 1. Brooklyn pride. Borough President Marty Markowitz was there, too! 2. Solange. Jay’s indie-leaning sister-in-law is a known fan of Grizzly Bear, rhapsodizing about their music and documenting the hangs they share via Twitter. And guess what? She was there too. 3. Grizzly Bear are totally the new Coldplay, you guys. Maybe even bigger, since they’ve already snagged the desirable Michael McDonald endorsement. (Sorry, Chris!) 4. What better way to enjoy a splendid summer Sunday than a outing to the sweatiest part of the Brooklyn waterfront? Those of us who spent our afternoons on the couch watching Spaceballs because of an unidentified stomach ailment might be a little jealous, because it was so nice out. Blech. 5. Jay is still on a campaign to maximize the bloggability of The Blueprint 3. With 13 days to go until its release, the already-skittish Jay probably wanted to keep his name in the papers, or at least their online equivalent. Not only did his appearance work on that level, it sparked rumors that Jay actually performed with the band (he didn’t), which in turn got the always-coveted “megameme” tag from Hipster Runoff. Sure, said meme wasn’t entirely true, but when were facts important on the Internet, anyway? Holy shit!!! [JillMenze@Twitpic] [Special thanks to Jeff Rosenthal.]