To say that Beyoncé and Jay Z are a power couple is a stadium-sized understatement. Each with over 20 Grammy Awards to their name, together they have sizzled across stages, studio albums and social media feeds. Their On the Run II tour will bring spectacle and complicated love into focus at Levi’s Stadium. Don’t expect the couple to shy away from the rocky road of infidelity and reconciliation that has played out across their critically acclaimed albums, but expect the reconciliation point to be driven home in high definition. So grab your bae and take in all the sensory overload you can handle from Bey and Jay.

Jay Z & Beyonce
Sat, 7:30pm, $85+
Levi’s Stadium, Santa Clara

One has to wonder if all the fuss about Beyoncé and Jay Z’s rumored separation is just one more staged act of the couple’s cinematic and highly scripted On The Road tour, in San Francisco on Tuesday for the first of two shows at AT&T Park.

With reports that the tour will bank $100 million on ticket sales barely muting rumors of divorce just hours before they hit the stage at AT&T Park, it’s well within their means to drum up a little scandal to keep them in the headlines and tickets sales moving (all press is good press, no?).

Drama aside, it’s doubtful many people at the nearly sold out show left unhappy on Tuesday.

The husband-and-wife duo stuck to the script with little deviation from the first 17 shows of the On the Run Tour—a Bonnie and Clyde theme weaved between nearly 40 songs during a 2.5 hour performance.

Read more on Metro affiliate SFstation.com.

After selling out Candlestick Park within hours this summer with Justin Timberlake, Jay Z is hitting the road solo with a tour stop in San Jose this December.

Tickets for the concert at SAP Center on December 11 go on sale September 12 at 10 a.m. The tour is in support of Jay Z’s 13th album Magna Carta Holy Grail, which hit double platinum with 2 million copies sold in the U.S., thanks in part to a deal he cut with Samsung to buy 1 million copies to distribute on the company’s Galaxy device.

Jay Z last performed in San Jose with Kanye West on the Watch the Throne tour. The rapper will nearly cross paths with his wife Beyonce, who plays SAP Center just over a week earlier on December 2.

So it turned out that crazy rumor about Kanye West is true. No, not the one about Kim Kardashian, but the even more unbelievable one that the guy has actually been having fun on this tour with Jay-Z. In fact, he was full-on clowning at their HP Pavilion show last night, playing off his why-so-serious reputation with a funny running gag that had him stopping and re-starting “All of the Lights” over and over because he just wasn’t quite getting enough light, or he had to give the white people in the audience permission to sing the word “nigga.” On that last one, he lost his deadpan, trying and failing to hide a smile. It was exactly the kind of human moment that Jay-Z seems to inspire in him.

Of course, 30 seconds later Yeezy was ripping into maybe his most intense performance of the night. It was hard to imagine how “All of the Lights” could be improved live, but he traded the studio polish for raw power, crashing through a crescendo of noise in the chorus that was sheer sonic lightning.

If anything rivaled it, it was his rendition of “Runaway,” the stunning ballad of remorse from last year’s My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy. (Is it any secret that Kanye’s a better singer than he is a rapper?) In a show packed with spectacle—and enough lasers to supply a Star Wars trilogy—the set-up was as simple and elegant as the song itself: West atop an elevated, cube-shaped stage lit solid red.

Jay-Z had his moments, too. From the first time that Kanye stepped away from the stage and Hove launched into “Where I’m From” and “Nigga What, Nigga Who,” his flow was amazing as he spit lines on top of each other, reminding everyone why he’s one of the best rappers of all time for pure delivery. “Empire State of Mind” and “Izzo” were show-stoppers, as well.

Of course, these were all solo numbers, which they traded off throughout the show. Wasn’t the point of this tour to take their collaboration on Watch the Throne to the stage? Yeah, but it just didn’t play out that way. They opened with several songs from the record, starting with “H.A.M,” then “Who Gon Stop Me,” “Otis” and “Welcome to the Jungle.” But when mixed with their solo material, the stuff from Watch the Throne simply couldn’t hold up. There were some odd set choices too—why was “Lift Off” (clearly a party-starting tune) buried near the end of the set? “No Church in the Wild” seemed to come too late, too. On the album, it’s practically their mission statement, but by the time they got around to it at the show, it seemed like filler. “Niggas in Paris” was a predictable choice for the closing minutes, but even that album centerpiece seemed anti-climatic after the mind-blowing performances of better songs.

The pair’s best moment together was definitely “Monster,” from Kanye’s last album. But it was also fun to see them perform on each other’s hits, which they did on “99 Problems” and “Gold Digger,” including a goofy transition between the two that captured what’s best about their chemistry. They respect each other, yeah, but they also like each other, entertain each other, and challenge each other. Even if their best moments were solo, I have a feeling there’s something about being in this together that pushed them to the heights they reached as performers last night.

— Steve Palopoli

One of the biggest rap shows of the year lands in San Jose tonight with the latest tour stop for The Throne, a.k.a. Jay Z and Kanye West.

With the cheapest tickets hovering around $70, the “luxury rap” duo shouldn’t have a problem financing more Bentleys, designer clothes and exotic trips.

What can we expect? A steady stream of hits from both rappers’ catalogs, an assortment tracks from their joint album released last summer and a performance of their latest single “N*ggas in Paris” at least seven times. Our friends at Idolator provide more insight with a list of Top 5 Moments from the first Staple Center show on Monday.

Count on hearing their first single “Otis” only once.