Rachel Bilson hanging at the Target To-Go kickoff Friday (top photo), Honor Society rocking the New York Stock Exchange tree lighting ceremony Thursday (middle photo), John Mayer and Taylor Swift performing “Half of my Heart” live for the first time at the Z100 Jingle Ball at Madison Square Garden Friday (bottom photo),Dashboard Confessional and New Found Glory performing an acoustic set at Highline Ballroom Friday, John Legend playing piano at Tom Colicchio‘s Top Chef finale dinner sponsored by American Express at Craftsteak Wednesday, Mark Ingram scooping up the Heisman Award at Nokia Theatre Saturday night,and Matisyahu tearing it up at a Hanukkah concert at Webster Hall Saturday night.
Natalie Portman freezing on the set of Black Swan with costar Vincent Cassel at Lincoln Center Monday (top photo), Emeril Lagasse earning the Lifetime Achievement Award at 12th Annual Food Allergy Ball at the Waldorf Astoria Monday night (middle photo), Gossip Girl star Sebastian Stan at Bode Miller‘s Tennis Fusion Challenge Monday (bottom photo), Josh Madden spinning at the Eldridge Wednesday, Rihanna cheering on her New York Knicks Monday night, and Elton John playing a private American Express show at Beacon Theater Sunday night.
Poison Ivy got to watch Alicia Keys perform “Empire State of Mind” live with surprise guest Jay-Z Tuesday night at the American Express-sponsored, YouTube-streamed World AIDS Day concert at Nokia Theatre!
Keys broke it down on the piano for a solid hour before Hova showed up – rocking old hits (“Fallin,” “You Don’t Know My Name,”) newer songs (“No One,” “Superwoman,”) and brand new tunes off her forthcoming record The Element of Freedom.
“14 million children are sleeping with a broken heart cause they’ve been orphaned by AIDS,” Keys said, before playing newest single “Sleeping With a Broken Heart.”
Poison Ivy had a chance to go backstage and congratulate Keys following her amazing performance, and also hear her pledge her alliegance to the Worlds AIDS Day organization.
We’re not even going to try and explain the pandemonium that ensued when Jay-Z jumped onstage and joined Keys for their brilliant, beyond-triumphant ode to New York, “Empire State of Mind.” Just take a look at the video below and see for yourself!
P.S. Bob Dylan truly put it best: “There’s nothing about that girl I don’t like.”
[Photo by Michael Loccisano/WireImage for American Express]
“I’ve been up since three in the morning,” says John Mayer. He’s speaking to a handful of American Express cardmembers who purchased tickets to see Mayer perform an intimate, hour-long “Live at Letterman” set on CBS Thursday night, but Mayer wants us to know he’s not complaining.
“Being up this long allows you to have as much fun as possible,” he adds, then catapulting into “Perfectly Lonely,” a plucky blues ballad off his latest release, Battle Studies.
Mayer soaked the hour up with tons of Studies tunes – “Heartbreak Warfare,” “Friends, Lovers or Nothing,” Poison Ivy favorite “Half of My Heart,” and the controversial “Who Says,” which Mayer tried to clear up with a Boyz II Men comparison.
“Is ‘I’ll Make Love To You’ about making babies?” he asked the audience. “Not unless you’re trying to make babies.”
“It’s not [about making babies] if you’re listening to it while you wash your car,” he laughed.
Mayer didn’t venture too far back into his 10-year catalog – sticking to mainly Studies tunes and two songs off of 2006’s Continuum: “Gravity” and “Waiting on the World to Change.”
But we were ever impressed with his melodic finesse and comedic ability!
He even managed to throw a couple seconds of Jay-Z‘s “Empire State of Mind” into the bridge of “Who Says”!
Check out a glimpse we snuck of Mayer performing an extended version of “Friends, Lovers or Nothing,” above.
“This is very foreign to us,” Jon Bon Jovi said to a crowd of some 900 fans who gathered at Lincoln Center’s Alice Tully Hall Monday night.
“It’s usually 65,000 people,” he elaborated, “or just us.”
The intimate event, sponsored by American Express with ticket sales benefiting New York hunger foundation City Harvest, featured a two-hour Q&A moderated by When We Were Beautifuldirector Phil Griffin and a handful of unplugged songs by Bon Jovi and a four-piece backing band.
Fans from the tri-state area flocked to NYC to attend the 25-year-old-band’s rare appearance, which was announced and sold to American Express cardmembers exclusively via Twitter.
Highlight performances of the night included “Livin’ On a Prayer,” “Superman,” “Whole Lot of Leaving,” (dedicated to guitarist Richie Sambora), a cover of Leonard Cohen‘s “Hallelujah,” and new single “We Weren’t Born to Follow,” off the band’s latest record The Circle.
“We’ve tried to see the glass half-full,” Bon Jovi said, of his overwhelmingly positive songs. “From ‘Livin’ on a Prayer’ to ‘Born to Follow,’ there’s been this theme of responsible optimism.”
Though the night focused on the meanings behind the music, Bon Jovi got jovial with the crowd at times, at one point asking them to “Be honest. Everyone here, when we said we were doing a country record, [thought]: ‘You motherf***er’.”
Following the performance and Q&A, audience members had an opportunity to ask questions, the most poignant being, “50 years from now, which song would [Bon Jovi] choose to be remembered by?”
“‘Prayer’ would probably be high on that list,” Jovi answered, after a moment of thinking.
He then looked down as if to say he changed his mind.
“I don’t know,” he added. “I’m not writing my epitaph yet.”
Check out a video of that response, along with some snapshots of the night, below.
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