What critics are saying about Beyoncé and Jay Z's 'On the Run' tour

Music's biggest power couple — Jay Z and Beyoncé — are touring together for the first time this summer for the highest-profile stadium tour of the season. So how does their "On the Run" tour shape up? Here's what critics had to say.

And you can read my take on their Thursday show at Chicago's Soldier Field Friday morning at jsonline.com/musicand Saturday in the Journal Sentinel.

■ "The sheer volume of material, coupled with the cinematic theme and Beyoncé's jaw-dropping wardrobe changes made for a highly entertaining and impressive show that went from the glamorous to the profane. But it was also a rather detached show....The lines between performers and audience were very sharply delineated, and both Jay and Beyoncé were careful to adhere to script and procedure every step of the way. If there was no room for error, there wasn't room either for spontaneity or audience interaction."

— Leila Cobo, Billboard

■ "Husband and wife might get equal billing here, but make no mistake: This is Beyoncé's show. She monopolized the heavy-duty set pieces, she wore the jaw-dropping outfits, she delivered the mesmerizing and complex choreography. Perhaps a little too often, it felt like Jay Z was there just to kill time between his wife's costume changes, but what better way to kill time than have one of the greatest rappers of all time rifle through a few of his biggest tunes."

— Daniel Kreps, Rolling Stone

■ "Jay and Bey have become mythical enough through their towering media profile and heavily autobiographical songs that seeing them move between these lightly fictionalized versions of themselves and the already larger-than-life actual ones felt like a breakdown of a fourth wall. Only instead of the pair busting out of their celluloid world, the audience got pulled into the fantastically glamorous biopic happening on stage. Conjuring that epicness in real time requires sticking to a tight script....Beyoncé and Jay Z are so intensely charismatic that it doesn't matter. Like any big-budget extravaganza packed with special effects, it's not the element of surprise that's important, but the glorious sensory overload of the experience."