Jay-Z, Kanye West's 'Watch the Throne' Tour Kicks Off: What Concertgoers Are Saying

5:00 PM PDT 10/30/2011 by THR staff

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One reviewer called the Atlanta show "thrilling" while another said the "high-energy crowd" was "swaying and dancing and singing."

Jay-Z and Kanye West kicked off their tour in support of their team-up, Watch the Throne, on Friday in Atlanta -- and the reviews were positive.

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MTV called the duo's Watch the Throne kick-off -- which didn't have a warm-up act or opener, instead a DJ played songs like "Between the Sheets" by Isley Brothers -- "thrilling." The Watch the Throne show was "marked by the duo's overabundance of hit records," its review said.

Though the reviewer noted that the execution wasn't 100 percent together, with technical problems affecting Jay-Z's timing. "His ear piece short-circuited and failed to properly feed him the music and his timing was clearly affected," the reviewer wrote. "For a time, Hov's raps were badly off beat." And later, Jay-Z had the music cut so the issues could be fixed, finishing "Who Gon Stop Me" a capella style.

"Every time the crowd thought the two-hour-plus show was over, it wasn't," the reviewer recalled.

USA Today said the 21,000-plus at Philips Arena "in the high-energy crowd remained standing -- and swaying and dancing and singing -- for the entire 2 1/2-hour show. At one point, as Jay-Z and West performed 'N----- in Paris' ... West exhorted the audience to 'Bounce! Bounce!' "

A radio personality commented on the way Jay-Z and West went back and forth during their joint concert. "They've each had so many hits, I was interested to see how they would go back and forth," he said. "I thought they did a really nice job with that. You noticed how they would each do their own thing on some songs, then blend it back together?"

Atlanta Journal Constitution noted, "Several times during the set, the twosome flashed grins at each other or slung an arm around the other’s shoulder, although West usually followed Jay-Z’s lead with any affectionate movements."