Remember the festival tours, when the best of a genre got together and hit the road, in the process giving the fans some serious bang for their buck? In hip-hop, those package tours disappeared about a decade back, perhaps due to the culture of violence that culminated in the deaths of Biggie Smalls and Tupac Shakur, and has trailed off into a general attitude of skeptical distrust between hip-hop artists ever since.

“The Heart of the City Tour” came to HSBC Arena on Thursday evening, and with it came a valiant attempt to heal some hip-hop wounds. Jay-Z— the bestselling rap artist ever — and Mary J. Blige— the queen of hip-hop soul — teamed to offer a full and audibly appreciative HSBC Arena crowd a state-of-the art show. Blige is widely held to be the finest R&B singer of her generation. Jay-Z pretty much owns mainstream hip-hop.

Thursday’s show was certainly a flashy affair, and it had its moments of musical impact. Unfortunately, particularly during Blige’s set, style outweighed substance by an unhealthy margin.

REVIEW

WHO: Mary J. Blige and Jay-Z with the Dream

WHEN: Thursday night

WHERE: HSBC Arena

The show opened, after a digital clock counted down the minutes until show time, with a video featuring Blige and Jay-Z riffing on their reasons for teaming up.

The curtain fell, and Blige and Jay-Z faced the crowd, as the massive band — a 12-piece mini-orchestra, comprised of horns and strings, three backing vocalists, a bassist, guitarist, two keyboardist, a drummer and a percussionist — broke into “Can’t Knock the Hustle.” Together, Blige and Jay-Z presented quite a force, his deep-throated rapping providing an ample foil for her flights of R&B coloratura. The crowd was up and dancing the whole time.

Blige gave her all, from the first note to the last. The crowd loved her throughout, responding with enthusiasm to her between-song raps, and generally reflecting abundant love back toward the stage.

Unfortunately, on a musical level, Blige was full of sound and fury, but the end result signified little.

Blige has always been a bit of a scat singer, and her lines flutter around and about the song’s melody, such as it is. Many times, those flights ended up crashing into a brick wall, as Blige trailed off on out-of-tune notes or overemphasized unnecessary twists in the songs’ tenuous melodies. What she lacks in technical skills, she makes up for in emotional investment, however.

This came into full relief when Blige tackled Chaka Kahn’s “Sweet Thing.” The singer gave it a noble effort, and hit the high notes written into the melody. This was one of Blige’s finest moments, and underscored the comparative lack of substance in her own compositions.

When Jay-Z showed up for a brief duet during “Real Love,” the crowd’s enthusiasm doubled, offering a foreshadowing of what was to come when the world’s most popular rapper took the stage.

Jay-Z has long been a cocksure rhymer, and his deep, near-baritone voice helps his rather effortless way with ghetto metaphors hit home with full force. This happened from the moment he hit the HSBC stage.

“Roc Boys,” “Show Me What You Got,” “Song Cry” (with Blige), “99 Problems” — Jay-Z brought all of this with an incredible intensity that was mirrored by the crowd.