TORONTO - Jay-Z donned a white plastic hockey mask for the opening of his Hallowe’en show on Saturday night at the Air Canada Centre.

How appropriate.

The King of Rap pays homage to the king of horror movie characters - Jason - on All Hallows’ Eve.

Face mask aside, Jay-Z brought plenty of slick-looking and sounding tricks and treats with him.

A snippet of Paul McCartney and Wings’ Live And Let Die heralded his arrival while a massive video screen, broken up into rectangular pillars, and a 10-piece band including a three-man horn section, supplied all the sights and sounds of a big production rap show.

Touring in support of his latest No.1 album, The Blueprint 3, which saw Jay-Z recently surpass Elvis’ record for a solo artist, the super-confident Brooklyn rapper-entrepeneur emerged from beneath his elaborate stage wearing the aforementioned hockey mask and began his hour-and-40-minute show with two new standout tunes, Run This Town and D.O.A. (Death Of Autotune).

“What’s up Toronto?” said Jay-Z, who later remarked: “Elvis Presley has officially left the building.”

Jay-Z, whose real name is Shawn Carter, fleshed out his set with older songs like 99 Problems, Show Me What You Got, Izzo (H.O.V.A.), Interlude, Heart Of The City (Ain’t No Love), Thank You, On To The Next One, and Hard Knock Life (Ghetto Anthem) but the strength of his new material eclipsed a lot of it.

And often, all Jay-Z had to do was stand there to get massive amounts of applause and cheers.

He has that kind of charismatic presence on stage.

Fans could be heard chanting, “Hova! Hova!” in reference to his alias, a shortened version of Jehovah.

This is the guy who snagged Beyonce after all, who he married last year, and ended his show with a good ten minutes of talking to and pointing out all the fans and their costumes in the stands and on the floor, before wrapping up with Young Forever, also from The Blueprint 3.

“There are a lot of pretty girls in Toronto!” he said. “I appreciate every single person in this building!”

There was also a twinkling New York City skyline in a shoutout to his beloved Big Apple, and in honor of the new song, Empire State of Mind, featuring Bridget Kelly filling in for Alicia Keys (who sings on the record and recently performed the song live with Jay-Z at game two of the World Series in New York City earlier this week) and another new tune, A Star Is Born, with Kelly.

Both were bookended by the new songs, Already Home, and So Ambitious, the latter featuring Pharrell Williams of opening act N.E.R.D., while rising Toronto hip-hop star Drake, seemingly recovered from a summer knee injury, showed up to sing Successful alongside Jay-Z.

The most well known of the openers Saturday night were rap-rock-funk outfit N.E.R.D. (No one Ever Really Dies) featuring new Canadian vocalist Rhea, of Ajax, Ont., in the lineup alongside Williams, Chad Hugo and Shay Haley and their five-piece band which included two drumers.

But Rhea wasn’t enough gal for the hyper Williams who demanded: “We need more Canadian girls on stage,” and promptly got a conga line full of them, some in costume, who were willing to get down with him.

Truthfully, Williams, who is part of the Grammy-winning production duo The Neptunes (Jay-Z, Nelly, Justin Timberlake, Britney Spears, etc.), with Hugo, is a far better producer than he is a performer.

SUN RATING: 4 out of 5