Jay Z and Kanye West brought their Watch The Throne tour to the Tacoma Dome on Friday night, and though I was there for the music I was quickly overcome by the mind blowing visual spectacle the ensued. Fireworks, lasers, giant screens behind the main stage and flames shooting out of the stage. The feeling in the Tacoma Dome changed when people realized that two of the biggest stars in hip hop were standing right in front of them.
The show started with Jay Z and Kanye each on their own 20-foot-high cube that seemed to rise up out of nowhere, one out of the main stage and the other out of the center of the floor seating area. The cube stages doubled as screens that displayed images of sharks, barking dogs, and scenes of jungle animal attacks.
The two stars shared the stage performing songs from their Watch The Throne album and took turns doing mini sets of their solo hits. During Kanye’s first few songs, someone from the front row pitched his business card on stage and Kanye stopped during his song “All Falls Down” to address the issue and have the fan removed. “These cubes goin’ 20 feet in the air… we riskin’ our lives out here. You can’t be throwin’ (stuff) that we gonna slip on,” said West while he called for the fan to be ejected. The performance went on shortly after and the crowd seemed to get over it pretty quick.
The show ended in epic fashion as the pair performed their popular song “Ni**as in Paris” five times in a row. I have never seen an artist perform a song twice in one show and these guys played the same song five consecutive times and each time the crowd went crazier than the last. As if the black leather kilt Kanye was wearing wasn’t evidence enough that these two can pretty much do whatever they want, this encore certainly confirmed it.
To be in attendance felt like one of those once in a lifetime opportunities and almost didn’t seem real. I can’t really come up with the words to do this show the justice it deserves so I posted a video below that should paint a pretty clear picture.
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