Queen Bey rocked the Staples Center stage last night with an all-female
backing band. If there are any flaws in the "Mrs. Carter Show World
Tour," it was certainly hard to spot them without a zoom lens. She's
focused, man!
Last night at Los Angeles’ Staples Center,
Beyoncé was cautious. After sites posted unflattering pictures of Queen
Bey from her Super Bowl performance, her publicist went into cleanup
mode, asking them to pull the offending snapshots. Few obliged, of
course, so Team Bey did the next best thing: they banned all cameras
from future performances, including her “Mrs. Carter Show World Tour,”
which wrapped its European leg in early June.
For
the third night of her North American leg (and her second at Staples),
Beyoncé took the stage, flaws and all. But throughout the performance,
it was hard to detect them. Two writers braved the concert together,
trying to make sense of the power that Beyoncé harnesses and learning
that while a picture is worth a thousand words, a Beyoncé show is
priceless.
A CRITICAL ANALYSIS OF BEYONCE INTERNET MEMES
Before
I begin, I should note that Beyoncé performed her second Los Angeles
show in four days (with a Las Vegas concert sandwiched in between) to a
packed Staples Center, even with General Admission floor tickets going
for $89 a pop. She’s got five more performances in the next week, each
in a different city. The roar when she finally took the stage was
deafening, and the production level of the entire concert was off the
charts. Even I, an indifferent fan, got a few goosebumps when she sang
the opening lines of Whitney Houston’s “I Will Always Love You.” There’s no denying her unbelievable dedication and overall “it” factor.
Having said all that, after a rather unflattering photo
popped up from her Super Bowl performance, Beyoncé banned all cameras
from her current “Mrs. Carter” tour. Coming from a certified jackass and
a professional troller, this is a major no-no, the public relations
equivalent of trying to put out a fire with a bucket of oil. Dude,
you’re supermodel levels of attractive. Who cares about a silly picture.
Just laugh it off, and the whole thing will eventually fade away. A
camera ban does nothing because people will undoubtedly find ways around
what you’re trying to prevent, like writing an entire review about it.
No cameras on tour? No problem. There’s an infinite amount of ways to Photoshop backgrounds and add captions
to keep the meme alive. One photo is more than enough. And let’s not
forget that EVERY SMARTPHONE IN THE AUDIENCE HAS A CAMERA BUILT INTO IT.
Security may have been able to keep the venue camera free, but
attendees were free to sneak in blunts or whatever other illegal
substances they wanted, since those don’t set off a metal detector.
Great job, guys!
Naturally, this
picture was in my head the entire concert, and now that I’ve seen
Beyoncé perform in person, I can say that she makes weird faces like
that a lot. But they’re proof that she’s literally putting all
of her energy into giving the crowd their money’s worth, because her
face wouldn’t contort into such unbecoming poses if she were half-assing
her way through it. And towards the end of the night, the stars
aligned, the seas parted and for one magical moment I saw her hit that
pose exactly. She was even staring in my direction when it happened—it
was as if there was a flash of divine intervention, a celestial being
telling me “impart this wisdom onto others.” And now, I share it with
you.
During a medley of “Single Ladies (Put a Ring On It),”
(she spliced in riffs and verses from pop hits with her own material
throughout the performance), Beyoncé took a moment to remind the crowd
that she was born and raised in Houston, Texas: “The dirty South, and in
the South, we like to get dirty.” She followed by channeling her inner
blues, singing “hey” three times in that deep Southern baritone (think
“Ol’ Man River”), clearly pushing the limits of her vocal range.
Combined with her dancing, which unlike many pop stars was just as
rigorous as the backups who didn’t have to sing, her body tensed and
went into overdrive. So before you make a joke at her expense, just keep
in mind there’s a reason she turns into She–Hulk—she’s one of the
hardest working pop stars in the business, a literal superhero. Now,
make your joke.
