I know this is not the norm that I usually post on but I mean technically this is something I watched. It just wasn’t on television, in a theater, or online. The Jay-Z and Kanye West Watch The Throne tour made its way to Houston,TX as part of their 24 city tour and delivered one hell of a show. Maybe one of the best shows I’ve seen.

Doors for the show opened at 6pm. I got there at 7:30 and the lines to get in went on for some blocks.  Our seats were in the nosebleed section but this didn’t matter because no matter where you were in the arena it was a good seat. The show kicked off at about 9:15pm when they came out and did H.A.M. and Who Goin’ Stop Me Now. They started on opposite sides of the arena with Jay-Z on the main stage and Kanye West on a stage set in the middle of the floor.  The stages both ascended high into the air above the crowd and the screens on the stage flickered with images of dogs and sharks. The crowd was sooo hyped up and on their feet and never really sat down the entire time.

They then went into the Otis Redding sampled song, Otis, and then on to other Throne favorites Welcome To The Jungle, Gotta Have It and Where I’m From. With each song there were flames and lasers and lots of booming but those things didn’t distract from the main focus, the wonderful tag team on stage.

Jay-Z then did his hit Jigga what, Jigga Who from his Vol. 2…Hard Knock Life album. After this song he gave the stage over to Kanye who then commanded the stage with his hits Can’t Tell Me Nothing, Flashing Lights, Jesus Walks, All Falls Down and Diamonds From Sierra Leone (Remix). Kanye’s outfit of choice for the night was a black over-sized t-shirt emblazoned with a picture of his face on it,  gladiator skirt, black leather leggings/tights and black high tops. Jay came back out for Diamonds as he is featured on that record. They then went back and forth on the stage and did more of their solo hits. It was in this segment when Ye’ was doing his song All of The Lights that I thought we were gonna get a full on meltdown. The lights weren’t all on and Kanye started the song up 3 times before the lighting people got it right put them up at full blast.  Meltdown avoided. Still not sure if that was real or something he does every night for that song.

They hit the last 30 minutes of the show when they got back together to do Jay’s 99 Problems. They then went into their final songs from the Throne album, No Church in The Wild (one of my favorite songs on the album), Lift Off (another favorite of mine), and N****s In Paris. I was hoping that maybe the 8 month pregnant wife of Jay-Z, Beyonce would come out and give a vocal on the song Lift Off that she is featured on since they were in her hometown but sadly no Beyonce.

The guys then went out on their latest single, N****s In Paris. I hated that song when I first heard it but I love it now. The crowd was exceptionally hype for this song as we knew it was going to be the end. They did the song and stopped at the line “and they going gorillas, huh!” then they started it again finished the song out and walked off stage. The arena started clapping for an encore and they came out again to……… N****s In Paris. At first I thought are we not going to get a different song, but then I thought what other song could they go out to. So I just Kanyeshrugged and danced my butt off the 4 more times they did the song. At maybe the 4th time they did the song, Jay-Z tells everyone to come up to the stage. Security tried to stop people but Jay-Z told them to leave the people alone and we all continued to rock. The crowd was so hyped that some girl threw her gold pump on the stage (it got handed back to her by Ye’) and someone else threw a joint on the stage. Oh Houston.

Epic show. It was well worth the wait and the price and Jay and ‘Ye didn’t disappoint at all. They did a total of 38 songs and that doesn’t include the 4 times they did N****s In Paris and were on stage for a little over 2 and a half hours. They were done at midnight with the crowd only wanting more. I was so pumped for the rest of the night and was up until about 2am. I had barely had any sleep for work the next day but it was sooooo worth it.