The Round Table

Everyone who knows me knows that I am a fan of great shows. I love a concert for the full experience and more often than not I will choose a great performer or dancer over a great singer. Why? Because the Whitneys and Mariahs of the world just stand there, but the Madonnas and Janets, they ENTERTAIN! The thing I love about Beyonce is that she is a combination of both. She is a talented singer and has become quite the dancer as well. Though sometimes she can be a bit over the top vocally, I think this tour demonstrated her maturity by showing that she’s learning where to pull back and just sing a song. These moments were few, but there nonetheless.

Now let’s get to the meat of the show. Ms. Thing served it! She was sassy, she was sexy, she was diva. She was 1/3 Beyonce and 2/3 Sasha Fierce, evidenced by the part of the show where she showed a clip of her flipping a coin (B on one side Sasha on the other) and as it was about to land, Sasha appeared and caught it. Thus, taking over the rest of the show; as if she wasn’t running things already. Yes, it was corny, yes, it was drama and yes, it was a little extra. But damned if it wasn’t a helluva a show. Granted, there wasn’t much substance or a concept to tie it altogether, but who needs that when you’re singing Crazy In Love and out walks Jay-Z.  Not to do the rap from that song but to do a verse from I Just Wanna Love You. As you can imagine MSG went wild. Then her horn section added in a little James Brown funk, spray of gold sparkle confetti into the crowd and this is only the second song.  She was exhausting and engaging at the same time.

I must be honest, I was hoping for a few more guest appearances. There was a moment during Ego where the crowd was teased and thought Kanye was coming out. No such luck. And it would have been nice for Kelly and Michelle to pop up during the DC medley, but again, not tonight.

All and all, Beyonce is definitely trying to secure her place as the current hardest working woman in the business. Her show is two hours of non-stop energy and full of great moments. She seems to get better with every outing.  I totally recommend checking her out when she’s in your city.  Love her or hate her, you will be entertained.

Highlights -

• Her high-wire act over the crowd from main stage to stage B during Baby Boy.  It looked as if she was walking on air.
• She channeled Janet twice. Once by incorporating a piece of If choreo during Radio, and then later the spoken intro of What Have You Done For Me Lately. That’s right girl, pay homage.
• The Destiny’s Child medley
• A reel of the various Single Ladies clips from Youtube, including Justin on SNL, President Obama, that fat guy everybody saw, lots of cute kids and some guy out in snow with his fur hat on but still in a leotard.

Lowlights

• The Rhythmless nation sitting next to me, who every time she went “to the left to the left” she almost poked me in the eye.
• Ave Maria – the singing was fine, I just couldn’t understand the outfit. It was either wedding day of first communion. Whatever.
• Sarah Maclachlan’s Angel – we could have done without this one.
• At last – don’t get me wrong, it was an ok rendition. Vocally she sounded great, the problem is every time she does it we can only compare it to the original. I finally figured out why this always seems to fall short. B, though talented, just doesn’t have the pain that Etta James had and it comes across on the song.

Set list:

• Deja Vu
• Crazy in Love
• Naughty Girl
• Freakum Dress
• Get Me Bodied
• Ave Maria
• Angel
• Broken Hearted Girl
• If I Were a Boy
• You Oughta Know (Alanis)
• Sweet Dreams
• Diva
• Radio
• Me Myself and I
• Ego
• Hello
• Baby Boy
• Irreplacable
• Check Up On It
• Destiny Child medley 1 -Bootylicious, Bug a Boo, Jumpin Jumpin
• Upgrade U
• Video phone
• Say my name
• Destiny Child medley 2 (dancers only) – Independent women, Bills Bills Bills, No No No, Beautiful Liar, Survivor
• At last
• Listen
• Single ladies
• Halo
• Happy Birthday (for all the people celebrating birthdays in the audience)

Tags: beyonce, Destiny's Child, jay-z

This entry was posted on Monday, June 22nd, 2009 at 11:03 am and is filed under Shows. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.