ICE CUBE: Personal highlights from Made in America

Now that the Made in America weekend is over, we can laugh about the things that did and didn't happen.

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ICE CUBE: Personal highlights from Made in America

POSTED: Tuesday, September 4, 2012, 1:55 PM

Filed Under: Ice Cubes | Music

Ron Howard wading through Made in America on Day 1. (Patrick Rapa)

Now that the Made in America weekend is over, we can laugh about the things that did and didn’t happen.

Neither the Barnes nor the surprisingly-shut-down-for-the-holiday Rodin crumbled under the weight of the unwashed masses. Oddly enough, the masses weren’t that unwashed.

Beyonce didn’t sing with her husband. Bruce Springsteen didn’t sing with Pearl Jam.

Jay-Z and Beyonce never made it to Stephen Starr’s Barclay Prime on Friday night though they made reservations (the pair did get food served to them and their crew by Starr’s Buddakan and Morimoto on saran-covered china on Sunday in the VIP deck).

Somehow Kanye and Kim Kardashian had the headspace to go see a movie in Union Square in Manhattan then helicopter themselves respectively onstage and in the wings of Made of America.

And your city didn’t burn or blow up just because 80,000+ people ran roughshod along Art Museum Row.

From my vantage point in that aforementioned VIP outpost (not boasting, just saying) there were a lot of unique sights to be had. That said, I also couldn’t really take any photographs. It just wasn’t OK to snap photos of Beyonce (slightly frizzy hair, blousy white top with the word “Brooklyn” on it) smiling at me while Jay-Z (new Tims, new jeans, gold rope) wasn’t smiling at me. It wasn’t cool to shoot cell phone snaps of them chewing or, better yet, them rapping to Run DMC during the reunited rap legends’ heroic return (my favorite sighting of the weekend as well as my fave musical moment).

What is cool is that all these same people regularly strolled through the crowd and made friendly contact. Though Beyonce and Jay stuck mostly to the backstage area on Saturday, by Sunday, they were walking through the packed Parkway hand-in-hand and stopping by Gary Clark Jr.’s set along with hanging in the VIP area with Beyonce look-a-like/Jay-Z discovery Rita Ora and Philly’s own Santigold. I ran into Exene Cervenka and John Doe from X bopping around amongst the crowd though I dare say that they seemed overwhelmed for no particular reason (and let’s give it up for their rousing raging set, one of the five best of the weekend and something too few of you fuckers bothered to stand for). The Karate Kid/Will Smith’s son Jaden, complete with a new dye job — a blonde triangle in back of his head — brought his posse to the VIP area both days. They were the cutest kids this lot. I got hugs from both Pierre Robert (a full grip) and Mayor Michael Mutter (a shoulder to shoulder jawn) and these guys smelled swell (for the record, so did Beyonce). Adam DeVine and Blake Anderson, two of the guys from Comedy Central's Workaholics were in the VIP area too.

Ron Howard? He might have been the VIP MVP. The director with the longish red hair sticking out of his cap ran throughout the show with his own camera and talked to anyone who bugged him. He hung at that VIP area and stood in line with me, piling high his plate with meatballs and lots of gravy. Opie likes the sauce.

As far as sauce goes, I haven’t drank Budweiser since my first year high school so I’d like to thank the Anheuser Busch people, Live Nation and Jay-Z for giving me my first Bud buzz in years.

See Also: Patrick Rapa's MIA photos from Day 1 and Day 2.

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Featuring everything from event roundups to concert reviews and sex talk, City Paper's Critical Mass is a space for off-the-wall coverage of Philly's A&E scene.

Follow Critical Mass editors Patrick Rapa and Emily Guendelsberger on Twitter:

@mission2denmark | @emilygee

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