Beyoncé and Jay-Z close On the Run II tour with blazing Seattle mic drop

The music cut as Beyoncé took sole control of her stage. Sections of the packed CenturyLink Field erupted on cue with each silent gesture from their queen, dressed in a shimmery bronze catsuit as she expressionlessly surveyed the tens of thousands of her loyal subjects.

The sprawling stage seemingly quaked with every strike of her matching stilettos as she dived into “Sorry,” a love-spurned march that sends an unfaithful lover (i.e. Jay-Z) to the gallows as a stadium full of screaming fans bore witness.

Such is the power of one of the greatest performers of her generation who, along with her husband/hip-hop icon Jay-Z, is completing a three-album, two-megatour pop opera with this year’s On the run 2 tour. As Jay’s apparent infidelity became tabloid fodder, Jay and Bey took control of their story, embedding intimate details of their relationship into the most ambitious — and in Beyoncé’s case, transformative — art of their careers. If OTR II was the capstone to this love saga, the tour’s final stop in Seattle on Thursday was a 2.5-hour mic drop with fusillading fire cannons and enough wardrobe changes for a lifetime of award shows.

“This is real life,” flashed a message on the massive screen, as Beyoncé and Jay-Z took the stage a grueling hour and a half after openers Chloe x Halle ended their short but impressive set of suave electro-R&B tunes and youthfully optimistic pop anthems. The rest of the evening felt like a tour de force determined to show their head-nodding followers that all is well in the throne room of pop music’s royal couple.

The set list played like the most epic Bey-Z mixtape imaginable, with the couple taking turns rocking the stage solo and together, accentuating their disparate performance styles. During songs like the booming “Dirt Off Your Shoulders” — which still holds up 15 years later, despite wearing its timestamp on the sleeve of its Rocawear hoodie — and a vulnerable “Song Cry,” Jay reminded us that he’s among the class of one-man, one-mic rappers capable of captivating an arena (or with his wife’s help, a stadium) without breaking a sweat. This was especially true during a chilling The story of OJ the poignant Grammy-nominated single off last year’s “4:44.”

Conversely, Beyoncé storms her stage as the unquestioned squad leader of a stomping dance troupe and a brass-honking, umpteen-piece backing band. Where Jay’s voice fought for space with the frenetic band at times, hers soared easily above its squall amid a “Ring the Alarm”/“Don’t Hurt Yourself” medley.

“Keep your money, I got my own!” she growled during the latter, hurling four-letter words like daggers at a portrait of Jay nailed to a $15,000 armoire.

Aside from an extra sly “’03 Bonnie and Clyde” and the trapified closer “Ape[expletive]” — the Migos-boosted banger that felt like a celebration of their marriage’s survival — their moments together onstage rarely matched the fire of their individual slots. It’s understandable, considering the biggest hits of their respective catalogs are independent of each other, but sound issues did them no favors, either. A dutifully turnt “Drunk in Love” and “Black Effect,” a standout from the couple’s new joint album “Everything is Love,” were clipped when their vocals repeatedly cut out, at least for one side of the stadium.

The tour’s production, while not approaching Taylor swift level packed an understated punch with a tri-level platform for the band that unfolded from a massive video screen and a moving auxiliary stage that carried Jay and Bey above the crowd between his-and-hers catwalks. Art-film love-noir scenes and home-video-style clips of their family carried the reconciliatory vibes between movements, interwoven with subtexts of racial inequality and female empowerment.

For all the theatrics, one of the most memorable moments was the most stripped down. Dressed in a flowing wedding-white gown, Beyoncé dropped to her knees at the end of the runway for a soul-baring “Resentment,” her perfectly tender falsetto filling the stadium and making us wonder how love can truly overcome side chicks. But their joint finale, which included a doe-eyed “Forever Young,” was meant to show that it has, bringing the power couple’s love saga to a triumphant, second-honeymoon-style end — even if it was laid on a bit thick.

All hail the queen and king.