While he claims there ain't no love in the heart of the city, there's certainly plenty of adulation and bonhomie in the air as Jay-Z plays what is effectively his first proper UK show (An ill-fated Hammersmith bash a couple of years ago can't really count).
And, while there are occasional flashes of that special stuff that has drawn so many here, perhaps it's inevitable that six years of waiting have taken their toll. There are sparks, flashes and fizzes, but the night never really takes flight.
Not even Clipse and their minimalist juggernaut, 'Grindin'', can help hype things up. Adopting the "two blokes ambling about and shouting while their mate with a camcorder follows them around" mode of live rap performance does their intricate and excellent music no favours. By the time they return they must surely have learned some stagecraft.
Then again, it's taken Jay-Z all this time to play a headline show in this unpleasant barn, and he's hardly the Barnum and Bailey of rap. Concessions to "a show" are restricted to the back of the stage, where his DJ triggers the tracks from behind a mock-up bar. Roadies wander on and off stage depositing towels and bottles of water, occasionally stopping to chat half-heartedly among themselves. It's not exactly riveting.
And then there's the music. Perhaps feeling that he should tailor his set to what he thinks a UK urban audience is going to want to hear, Jay's selections tonight are predominantly the more skittering, uptempo, garage-friendly cuts from his more recent albums.
Admittedly, some of this is absolutely stunning: 'I Just Wanna Love U (Give It 2 Me)' is greeted with screaming and bouncing, and sounds fantastic, and when he later plays 'Hard Knock Life' it's brought home how much better produced his newer records are. In this sort of environment all you need is a pounding bass and searing trebles - the melodic subtleties of 'Izzo' or 'Heart Of The City' are completely swallowed by the room - and that's what Jay delivers.
But things never seem to really connect. He sends the audience into raptures, then stops for no apparent reason between songs, where practically every other rapper with more than a couple of albums out since the emergence of Public Enemy would mash them together to create a breakneck rush of a night. Instead, Jay plays his songs, and, good as they are, it just doesn't feel like it's enough.
