Usher and Chris Brown deliver a very late, underwhelming concert in Atlanta

With the R&B Tour, Usher and Chris Brown are on the biggest trek of their respective careers, performing in football stadiums for the first time.

The name of the joint outing, which began in Denver in June, has a double meaning — signifying their surnames (Raymond and Brown) and the musical genre they’ve both dominated since they were teens.

At their Atlanta show Thursday night, the first of a historic five-night run at Mercedes-Benz Stadium, the tour took on a largely different meaning — that these two self-proclaimed kings of R&B may not even like each other.

Put more plainly, Thursday’s delayed concert, with no opening acts, felt confounding and contentious, distracting from the singers’ immense talent and disappointing fans on the opening night in the city Usher calls home.

Atlanta deserved better.

Although Mercedes-Benz Stadium posted the show’s start time as 7:30, Usher’s people say it wasn’t planned to begin until 8:30. But by 9 p.m., DJ Fresh, Brown’s touring hype man, had already emceed the night for nearly two hours. Consequently, the crowd — even the choir of twerkers in the audience — lost momentum. The longer he played his Rolodex of hits (from “Sexyy Red” to “SWV”), the more the event started to feel like a party on Edgewood and not a concert people paid to attend.

Twenty minutes later, still no Brown and Usher. Instead, the beat of R. Kelly’s “Bump n’ Grind” echoed from the speakers.

“I play what I want to because I can,” DJ Fresh said, unprovoked, of Kelly, who’s currently serving a 30-year prison sentence for racketeering, sex trafficking and production of child pornography.

Perhaps that was a sign more chaos would follow.

By 9:45 p.m, the crowd was clearly disgruntled, and the camera panned to a man holding his phone with the message “Start the show” across his screen.

The show didn’t begin until 10:03 p.m. with Brown performing “Party.” The 2017 song features Usher, and the pair have performed it together as the R&B Tour opener.

But Usher didn’t appear. The odd introduction was compounded by the poor sound quality that often made Brown’s singing difficult to comprehend (a theme for both performers throughout the night). His dance moves, at times both erratic and impressive, didn’t help.

The moment begged the question — are Brown and Usher beefing?

A few minutes later, Usher, on a separate stage, began his set with “Yeah!” “U Don’t Have to Call” and “Love in This Club.” His opening greeting to fans? “King s---.” That was followed by even more telling words: “Atlanta, welcome to my show,” signaling that maybe the pair is closer to being foes than friends.

So much for a tour that was allegedly formed by their admiration for each other. When contacted during the show, a rep for Usher said they didn’t know what prompted the delay. When asked further questions about the late start after the concert, reps for Usher and Brown didn’t respond.

Despite Usher and Brown being frequent collaborators on hit songs, they never shared the stage Thursday. It was almost like watching two separate shows. Brown is more dance than song. And he performs the studio version of most of his hits, which makes for a monotonous live show.

Brown’s stronger moments leaned into fan favorites from the early aughts, when his music was more poignant.

He serenaded the crowd on “Yo,” “Ain’t No Way” and “Say Goodbye.” For a brief moment, the stadium was transported to a perkier time in Brown’s career, when he was the teen heartthrob everyone wanted to make their boyfriend.

Usher is a healthy balance of song and dance, the better showman of the two. But even that wasn’t enough to avoid the feeling of being robbed. Yes, his timeless hits “Superstar,” “You Make Me Wanna” and “U Remind Me” wooed the audience. And his sex appeal peaked for “U Got It Bad.” However, the show felt too rushed to thoroughly enjoy.

He briefly honored Georgia’s Gov.-elect Keisha Lance Bottoms on her historic victory. The lights and camera panned to what appeared to be Bottoms’ suite at the show, but she was nowhere to be seen. It was weird.

The Atlanta shoutouts didn’t end there. T.I. and Young Dro served as Usher’s special guests, performing roughly 10 songs in nearly 30 minutes. They were on stage so long it started to feel like their concert. Oddly enough, given the night’s chaotic nature, their presence presented a delightful break from whatever apparent drama was brewing between the headliners.