Kanye West Brings on Jesus for 'Yeezus' Tour Kickoff

Kendrick Lamar opens the show in Seattle

Kanye West performs at the 2013 MTV Video Music Awards at the Barclays Center on August 25th, 2013 in the Brooklyn, New York.

Jeff Kravitz/FilmMagic

Kanye West kicked off his highly anticipated Yeezus tour at Seattle’s Key Arena on Saturday night with a two-hour-plus show that was as emotionally unsettling as it was awe-inspiring. Kendrick Lamar, the tour’s support act, got things started with a frantic 45-minute set made up almost exclusively of cuts from his critically acclaimed good kid, m.A.A.d city album. Lamar has been criticized in the last for being something of a lackluster live performer but he generally managed to put any such concerns to rest from the get-go and delivered a truly inspired performance. By the time the last notes of "Compton" had faded from the venue’s speakers, the crowd was on their feet chanting his name for more.
That was not to be of course, because it was West’s turn to show Seattle what he could do. Clad in a green tank top and wearing the first of four different masks he would don throughout the evening, West set the scene by taking a place at the front of the stage’s extended catwalk, his arms outstretched, bathed in a single white spotlight and surrounded by a gaggle of women cloaked in white dresses – their faces obscured by stockings. The audience responded to the display with an explosion of jubilation, and with the first strands of Yeezus’ opening track, "On Sight," West was off to the races.