Eminem made a triumphant return to California on Saturday night (25Sep10) when he stole the show from co-headliners Kiss at the Epicenter Twenty Ten festival in Fontana.
The rapper hit the stage in dramatic fashion after a Star Wars-type script scrolled across a space-themed giant screen, calling the show the Detroit native's "Recovery".
The cinematic note read, "In 2005, after completing a U.S. tour, Eminem stopped performing. Eminem entered rehab, a European tour was cancelled and there were rumors that he was retiring. Over the following years, Eminem appeared to be detached and unfocused. Seldom did he return to perform live.
"Tonight Eminem return to the stage. You are all hear to witness Eminem's Recovery."
The rapper then performed a powerful hits set dotted with medleys from past crowd-pleasers like My Name Is and The Real Slim Shady. He was also joined onstage by his D-12 bandmates for a tight three-song set.
The huge screen above him was used to show clips from his videos, quirky animation and it was used to beam images of late pal Proof and slain rappers Biggie Smalls, aka Notorious B.I.G., and Tupac Shakur during tributes.
Eminem appeared to be humbled and thrilled by the response from his California fans and treated them to an encore of Lose Yourself long after he'd thanked them for supporting him and bidding them a good night.
The highlights of his 80-minute set also included renditions of Stan, Not Afraid, I Love the Way You Lie and his take on B.o.B.'s summer (10) smash Airplanes.
The festival show came at the end of a month where Eminem performed back-to-back baseball stadium shows with Jay-Z in New York and Detroit.
Rockers Kiss discovered the rapper was a tough act to follow - more than half of Saturday's Epicenter audience left the arena after Eminem's show ended.
Suicidal Tendencies and Blink-182 will headline the second day of the hit weekend festival on Sunday (26Sep10).