West performed the song for a pre-game concert held during VH1 's Pepsi Smash Super Bowl Bash on February 2 , 2006 . Wearing a Detroit Pistons jacket , West introduced " Heard 'Em Say " by telling the audience it was " my favorite song I ever worked on . " West provided a performance of " Heard 'Em Say " at St. James Theatre in Auckland , New Zealand on March 17 . He wore a glittery Adidas jacket and large sci-fi shades , later pausing to change into a bolero jacket , and a preppy white shirt . The complexity of the live arrangement required a string section , back-up singers , and a disk jockey and featured a surprise guest from fellow rapper Common . He played " Heard 'Em Say " during his appearance at the first day of Coachella 2006 in Indio , California , where he later on had A-Trak spin A-Ha 's " Take on Me " while he danced onstage to the delight of the audience . Backed only by a DJ and two backup singers , West performed " Heard 'Em Say " during his gig at Wango Tango on May 8 . During his headlining performance on the second day of Lollapalooza 2006 in his hometown of Chicago , West did a live rendition of " Heard 'Em Say " before an audience of 60,000 people . Though mainly comprised of indie-rock bands , the festival featured more hip-hop artists than the previous year , including Common , Lady Sovereign , Lyrics Born and Blackalicious . After performing " Diamonds From Sierra Leone , " West shifted into " Heard 'Em Say , " during which his DJ A-Trak provided some turntable scratches . Kanye gave a performance of " Heard 'Em Say " during his set at Live Earth 2007 . On October 10 , while Maroon 5 was playing " Nothing Lasts Forever " during a sold-out concert held inside Madison Square Garden , Adam Levine announced that he was to introduce " a good friend " to the stage , followed by a surprise guest appearance by West . To the delight of the audience , the two segued into a live rendition of " Heard 'Em Say . " West included " Heard 'Em Say " as the third live performance within the set list of his '' Glow in the Dark Tour '' , which began on April 16 , 2008 at the KeyArena in Seattle , Washington . At the show 's start , he 's pulled to his feet as the opening strains of " Wake Up Mr. West " from his second album '' Late Registration '' played , after which he is informed that Earth had lost all its creativity , and must save the human race from a banal existence . The composition is but one of the many , various songs taken from West 's first three studio albums that West uses for his conceptual concert . They serve to form a space opera storyline that details the story of how a stranded space traveler struggles for over a year making attempts to escape from a distant planet while on a mission to bring creativity back to Earth . In the narrative , West begins his voyage with a live rendition of " Heard 'Em Say " after conversing with the robotic , disembodied female voice of an onboard computerter named Jane . He performed on a small , elaborate stage spread into a desert sand dune shrouded in billowing smoke before a enormous LED screen depicting a skyline that continually morphs from shooting stars to pumping blue cells . West spent the entire performance onstage alone , rapping and singing lyrics of " Heard 'Em Say as his band played in a pit at the foot of the sloping stage . He wore jeans , a sweater with one missing sleeve , shoulder pads and a red windbreaker tied around his waist . Like most songs from his early albums , " Heard 'Em Say " was provided an electronic rendition that integrated with both the synthesizer quality of tracks from '' Graduation '' as well as the sci-fi theme of his conceptual concert
Live Earth 2007
Live Earth (2007 concert)
Heard 'Em Say