Jay-Z christens Barclays Center with Brooklyn love

NEW YORK (AP) — The newly built Barclays Center is the home of the Brooklyn Nets, and the team's co-owner, Jay-Z, christened the venue Friday night in uniform, sporting a Nets hat and jersey as he rapped two dozen jams onstage in front of thousands.

Jay-Z performed for an excited and rowdy crowd of 18,000, wearing a jersey that featured his last name, Carter, and the number four. It was his first of eight shows at the venue.

As he emerged onstage, a video highlighting some of Brooklyn's historical moments — like when it was named an official borough of New York City — played in the background. There were also pictures of famous faces who were born in Brooklyn, from MichaelJordan to Al Capone to Aaliyah to Adam Yauch of Beastie Boys.

Jay-Z opened the show with the hometown anthems "Where I'm From," a song about his upbringing in Brooklyn's Marcy projects complex, and "Brooklyn Go Hard." He followed that with a tribute to one of Brooklyn's icons: the late Notorious B.I.G. He performed some of the rap vet's hit "Juicy" as the crowd joined in.

"Sing loud so he can hear you in heaven," said Jay-Z, who also held a moment of silence for the rapper, who was shot to death in 1997.

Another Brooklynite — Big Daddy Kane — made an appearance, performing songs like "Ain't No Half Steppin'" and "Warm It Up, Kane." He received a roaring cheer from the crowd when performing old-school dance moves with two dancers in all white.

Jay-Z said Friday's concert was incomparable to most of his other top-level performances, including the Grammys, Glastonbury or Coachella.

"Nothing feels like tonight," he told the crowd multiple times.

The audience was excited and wild, cheering on Jay-Z as blue laser lights beamed across the venue. A seven-piece band was placed a level above Jay-Z, who paced from left to right while performing jams like "Empire State of Mind," ''I Just Wanna Love U (Give It 2 Me)," ''Izzo (H.O.V.A.)," ''99 Problems" and many others. Videos played on screens behind and above Jay-Z, while screens for fans in the higher sections — though not large enough — showed the rapper's performance on the left and right sides of the stage.

"I want to thank you, Brooklyn, New York City, for making me the man I am today," he said. "Like I said, everybody's from Brooklyn tonight."

A fan in the front section held up Jackie Robinson's Brooklyn Dodgers jersey, immediately grabbing Jay-Z's attention. He asked the fan for it and said: "I promise I'll give it back."

"Brooklyn had their heart broken," he said as he held up the jersey and referred to the Dodgers leaving for Los Angeles after the 1957 baseball season. "We cried for so many years. ...Look how far we've come."

Jay-Z will perform at Barclays through Oct. 6 with the exception of Oct. 2.

___

Michael Savage leaves radio show after legal win

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Michael Savage's talk show left the airwaves Thursday after the conservative host won a legal battle with his longtime employer, although his attorney said discussions with new networks are already under way.

Savage posted a message on his website Thursday evening under the headline "Free at Last!" that said he was free to work with any station or network from now on. He said he "will not be heard on the radio for some time."

His attorney Daniel Horowitz said Savage left Talk Radio Networkafter obtaining a favorable ruling in arbitration Thursday afternoon.

More than 8 million people listen to Savage's show each week, placing him behind only Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity in ratings, according to the magazine Talkers. The immediate effect that his abrupt departure would have on companies that advertise on his show was unclear.

An email sent to Oregon-based Talk Radio Network was not immediately returned. Savage's bio and name already have been removed from the company's website.

Horowitz says Savage has been fighting the network for two years to get out a contract that was 10 years old and prevented the host from switching employers. Horowitz said the agreement lacked protections afforded to artists and entertainers under California law, and tied Savage to Talk Radio Network indefinitely.

Horowitz said Savage spent more than $900,000 fighting his case but was awarded more than $1 million in arbitration. The agreement also calls for Savage to be able to obtain all archived tapes of his show.

Savage, who broadcasts from San Francisco, was heard on nearly 400 stations and has gained notoriety for offending immigrants and minorities, calling the Muslim holy book, the Quran, a "book of hate" and being banned in 2009 from traveling to England for allegedly fostering extremism or hatred. After that decision, the host appealed to one of the targets of his barbs, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, for help.

A State Department spokesman said at the time that countries have a right to determine who is allowed to enter, but declined to comment further on Savage's request.

___

Rowling's first novel for adults goes on sale

LONDON (AP) — British bookshops opened their doors early Thursday and some grown-up Harry Potter fans lined up overnight as J.K. Rowling launched her long-anticipated first book for adults, "The Casual Vacancy."

The lines were shorter and the wizard costumes missing, but the book was published to some of the same fanfare that greeted each Potter tome, with stores wheeling out crates of the books precisely at 8 a.m.

Published five years after the release of the last book in the boy wizard saga, "The Casual Vacancy" is already at No. 1 on Amazon's U.S. chart, and bookmaker William Hill put 2/1 odds on it outselling "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows," which shifted 2.6 million copies in Britain on its first day.

Many of the early buyers were Harry Potter fans who, like the author, have moved on to more adult fare.

"I just like how much excitement there is about a book," said 23-year-old Grace Proctor, a "massive" Potter fan who was first to buy the book at one London store.

"I think there are going to be people who will hate it just because they can hate it," she said. "But she's such an amazing writer, I don't think she can go wrong."

A story of ambition and rivalry set in the fictional English village of Pagford, the novel recounts the civic warfare sparked when the unexpected death of a town official leaves a vacancy on the governing body.

Rowling has said she was aiming for Dickensian sweep in the multi-character saga, whose doses of sex, satire and swearing mark a distinct departure from wholesome Harry.

Reviews have been mixed. The Associated Press judged it a challenging but rewarding read full of emotion and heart, while The Guardian newspaper said it was "no masterpiece, but it's not bad at all: intelligent, workmanlike, and often funny." Several reviewers felt the lack of easily likable characters might be off-putting to readers.

It's likely nothing Rowling publishes will ever match the success of the Potter books, which have sold more than 450 million copies around the world.

But booksellers are confident "The Casual Vacancy" will be one of the year's best-sellers, whatever reviewers say.

"A lot of children have grown up with Harry Potter. They're now adults who love books," said Susan Sinclair, divisional manager for the Foyles bookstore chain.

"I think it's going to be a really big seller at Christmas. It'll be an easy gift — but also a good one."

Jill Lawless can be reached at http://Twitter.com/JillLawless

Mr. Sexy Back tries to bring Myspace back

NEW YORK (AP) — "Who am I to say I want you back? When you were never mine to give away."

Those are the opening lines of a song that accompanies a "NewMyspace" promotional video. The once-mighty social network is trying to stage yet another comeback with the help of Justin Timberlake. The new site, for which people can request an invitation, looks a bit like an entertainment-focused version of Pinterest, with a dash of Twitter and Facebook thrown in.

But Myspace has tried redesigns before, to no avail. Will it work this time?

"If you break my heart a second time, I might never be the same," continues the song, "Heartbeat," by the group JJAMZ.

From the sound if it, Myspace wants to win the hearts and minds of tech-savvy hipsters. Founded in 2003 and initially a fast-rising star, Myspace attracted mostly teenagers and twentysomethings, offering them a place to express themselves online. It peaked in 2008 with some 76 million U.S. visitors in October. The site lost its footing as the fun of customizing profile pages began to bore its users and the site's heavy use of banner advertisements slowed the speed at which pages loaded. At the same time, people were already migrating to Facebook, which counted users 35 and older among its fastest-growing demographic.

The company's new promotional video offers a 2-minute and 18-second peek into a slick, image-heavy site. The site's much cleaner look is a stark contrast to the old Myspace, which users often derided as messy and cluttered. Posted this week, the video promises that Myspace will start "totally from scratch," as if trying to shed its former self. It doesn't say when the new site will launch, only that it's "not ready quite yet."

The new Myspace will let users connect to the site with their Twitter or Facebook accounts, a sign that it won't be competing with those sites as a social networking service. Rather, Myspace will continue with its entertainment focus, as a place to play and discover music, add photos, videos and playlists and connect with artists.

Timberlake, who's featured prominently in the video, will likely play a big part of the MySpace revamp. The former 'N Sync pop star, with a group of other investors, bought MySpace last summer from News Corp. for $35 million, mostly in stock. That was quite a difference from the $580 million that News Corp. paid for the company in 2005, when it was still an Internet darling.

MySpace, of course, isn't Timberlake's first foray into social networking. He played Napster co-founder Sean Parker, a party animal and early Facebook adviser, in Aaron Sorkin's "The Social Network" in 2010.

In August this year, research firm comScore put Myspace's monthly unique visitors at 28 million, making it the 43rd most visited Web property in the U.S. It's behind the likes of not just Google,Facebook and Twitter but startups such as Tumblr, along with the reviews site Yelp and WebMD.

"The new design certainly looks beautiful and it could certainly spur a lot of initial interest," said Clark Fredericksen, spokesman for research firm eMarketer, which used to put out ad revenue estimates for MySpace but no longer does. "But there are going to be significant challenges for any company looking to enter the digital music space. You have a lot of entrenched players who are really successful."

Those players include Spotify, Pandora, Rdio, not to mention Apple Inc.'s iTunes.

There's also the mobile question. It's unclear from the video what plans the new MySpace has for mobile devices such as Android smartphones, iPhones and tablet computers. Fredricksen points out that cloud-based music — streamed over an Internet connection — is shifting toward the mobile platform primarily. We are all on the go with our music. MySpace is entering a crowded market here, too.

Representatives for Specific Media, which owns Myspace, did not return messages for comment Wednesday. Timberlake's publicist also did not return an email for comment. With only the slick demo and the poppy, bittersweet lyrics of the JJAMZ song to offer details about the "New Myspace", these lines stand out:

"Maybe I'm ashamed to want you back. Maybe I'm afraid, you'll never stay."

___