Friday night I pledged my allegiance to DMX and had every intention of going to the Georgia Railway Freight Depot to witness his triumphant return to the stage, when a pair of concert tickets for the opening night of the 'Watch the Throne' tour in Atlanta fell into my lap. Faced with the option of paying for a concert versus seeing one for free, naturally I opted to 'Watch the Throne' and the concert was definitely worth the price of admission...
If you're a fan of Kanye West and Jay Z, by all means run out and get your tickets because this is the concert to end all concerts. But, if you're a fan of only one or the other, it might be about 45 minutes too long.
First may I ask, who thought a rap concert would start at 7:30 on a Friday night? I've read several online reports about the show starting two hours late, and call me crazy, but I thought the time stamped on the ticket was the door opening time. I didn't start getting dressed until 7:30 and when I got to Phillips Arena at 9:00 I was just in time to grab a drink and people watch for another 30 minutes before the show started.
Anyway
When the show finally did start Kanye and Jay Z rose from the floor facing each other on cubes set on opposite ends of the arena. The cubes had video of sharks swimming on them and you didn't know whether to look at Jay, Kanye or the sharks. It was sweet.
After performing H.A.M and Who Gone Stop Me on the cubes, the arena went dark, the cubes lowered back into the floor and when the lights came back up, the flag from Otis dropped from the ceiling and Jay and Kanye were on the front stage together and did Otis, Welcome to the Jungle, and Gotta Have It from Watch the Throne.
From there it was dueling Jay Z / Kanye West concerts
First Jay did N—- What, N—- Who then Kanye did Can't Tell Me Nothing, Jesus Walks and Diamonds from Sierra Leone. Then Jay Z did Public Service Announcement and You Don't Know and then Kanye joined in for Run This Town and segued into Monster and Power and then back to both of them for Murder to Excellence. It went like that all night with crazy imagery on 50 foot screens.
Kanye shed a tear during Heartless and Jay Z pantomimed a pregnant stomach on PSA when he said the line 'got the baddest bitch in the game wearing my chain'
Here's the rest of the set list:
New Day
Hard Knock Life
Izzo (H.O.V.A.)
Good Life
Empire State of Mind
Runaway
Heartless
Stronger
On to the Next One
Dirt Off Your Shoulder
Touch the Sky
All of the Lights
Big Pimpin’
Gold Digger
99 Problems
No Church in the Wild
Lift Off
N—– in Paris 2X
Encore
Made in America
Why I Love You
Oh, and there was no opening act and no special guest appearances from T.I., Young Jeezy or anybody else from the A and Kanye West wore a skirt. Ok, it was a kilt, but still.
Overall, considering what I paid, I give it an A+
