Beyoncé doesn’t simply take the stage – she takes the narrative again. On opening evening of her Cowboy Carter world tour on the four-year-old SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, California, she brings forth a sweeping, theatrical spectacle that reclaims nation music, reframes American identification and reminds everybody who’s nonetheless driving pop’s evolution in spite of everything these years. Her practically three-hour, seven-act efficiency attracts closely from Cowboy Carter – her Grammy-winning nation epic – and threads in nods to Renaissance, the ballroom-infused predecessor that lit up stadiums barely two years in the past. Moderately than stake a declare in nation, Beyoncé goes deeper: celebrating the Black roots of the style and exploding its boundaries with precision, energy and polish.
Exterior SoFi, distributors hawk extra cowboy hats than you’d see at a Los Tigres del Norte present. Inside, anticipation sizzles. Projected throughout the large stage-length display screen: CHITLIN’ CIRCUIT – a nod to the historic Black music venues the place blues, nation and rock took form. The present begins with American Requiem – the Signal o’ the Instances-drizzled opener from Cowboy Carter – adopted by a haunting Blackbiird. Then comes a defining second: a Hendrix-inspired Star-Spangled Banner, laced with the thunder of Freedom, flashing crimson, white and blue. The display screen reads: “By no means ask permission for one thing that already belongs to you.”
Photographs of Linda Martell and different Black nation pioneers flash behind her as Beyoncé – in a white Mugler leather-based set and matching cowboy hat – thanks “those that got here earlier than me” and praises followers for “giving me the artistic liberty to problem myself”. Ya Ya kicks the tempo up, Blue Ivy becoming a member of the dancers as Beyoncé shakes off her cowboy hat and flips her hair prefer it’s 2003. By the point she reclines on a throne and a robotic arm pours her a whiskey, the gang is all in.
Act two opens with a sharp-shouldered, Janet Jackson-flecked America Has a Downside, delivered behind a press podium. Then come Spaghettii, Formation and Diva, the final full with a deadpan TikTok-inspired bit. The band rises on three-story platforms as horns blast and dancers swarm. Blue Ivy returns, nailing the Déjà Vu choreography and incomes a roar from the gang.
Act three softens. Alliigator Tears and Only for Enjoyable give approach to Protector. “That is my first time singing these songs,” Beyoncé says. “I’m so glad to be singing them with you.” Her seven-year-old daughter, Rumi, joins her onstage, beaming and waving mid-song. Behind them seems a tribute: “I as soon as had a thousand wishes / However in my one want to know you / all else melted away.” All through, Beyoncé’s consideration to element is unmatched. Each motion and body is measured. Her group – a small metropolis of dancers, designers, stylists and crew – maintains astonishing cohesion. The present is genreless in the perfect sense: fiddles accompany gospel vocals, a robotic arm shares house with a golden mechanical bull.
Visuals and interludes deepen the themes. Western vignettes solid Beyoncé as an outsider. In a single stylized duel, an older white cowboy unloads bullets – they bounce off her physique. She is, as ever, bulletproof. Desert Eagle, Riiverdance and II Arms II Heaven observe below heat, glowing lights. Throughout Candy Honey Buckiin’, Beyoncé and her dancers groove in chaps and belts whereas Blue Ivy takes middle stage once more.
The Renaissance period nonetheless pulses: she rides a mechanical bull throughout Tyrant, simply as she as soon as rode Reneigh, her disco horse. “Welcome again to the Renaissance, y’all,” she says, as I’m That Lady, Cozy and Alien Famous person unfold with the identical crisp choreography and glittering, refashioned props. Then comes Daddy Classes, carried out dwell for the primary time since 2016’s Lemonade tour, as Beyoncé flies throughout the stadium on an enormous pink horseshoe. Cuff It will get a sweaty, slowed-down remedy on a satellite tv for pc stage. Later, she nods to Future’s Baby with parts of Payments, Payments, Payments in Thique, photos of the group enjoying onscreen.
Because the present stretches towards its remaining act, the transitions develop looser however no much less fascinating. A remix of Texas Maintain ’Em melts into Loopy in Love and Heated, earlier than Earlier than I Let Go lifts the gang to a remaining launch. The songs nonetheless come quick – 36 in complete – however there’s house for moments, too. For 16 Carriages, Beyoncé boards a glowing crimson convertible and soars above the stadium, main an enormous singalong. She closes with Amen – the bookend that concludes Cowboy Carter – draped in a US flag robe in entrance of a masked Statue of Liberty head with braided hair: a remaining picture each symbolic and searing.
At 43, Beyoncé isn’t circling the globe like she did for Renaissance – however her tenth live performance tour is a theatrical, tightly executed masterwork. She isn’t right here to show she belongs. She’s right here to remind us she already owns it. And if that is solely Act II, the actual takeaway may be simply how highly effective Act III might be when it lastly lands.
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