Beyonce, Tottenham Hotspur Stadium, review: Nobody in pop can touch her

Telegraph

2 days ago

The British weather may have rained on Beyonce's parade but the self-styled Queen Bee reigned supreme.
As a wet drizzle briefly swept through Tottenham Hotspur Stadium in the middle of her set, the US superstar only seemed to become even more empowered, smiling brighter, singing sweeter, then mounting a giant gold mechanical bull and executing a sassy, seductive dance routine in a slinky skin-tight costume as if there was nothing she liked better than a cold shower at the rodeo. Well, I guess she knew she had a veritable war zone's worth of pyrotechnic explosions to warm her up later.
We hear a lot about soft power these days, but in terms of cultural heft and sheer firepower, American superstar Beyonce hit Britain soft and hard.
It was a show of spectacle and seduction, of bone-rattling volume and heart beating musicality, of surprisingly hard-hitting politics and uplifting emotion.
It was American to the core, with no quarter give for local concerns, draped in a visually dazzling array of classic American iconography, from a huge LED stars and stripes to the star posing as a blindfolded statue of Liberty, but certainly not a vision of American greatness that the current US regime would care for.
Beyonce gave us a version of the Star Spangled Banner set to Jimi Hendrix's coruscating Woodstock deconstruction of the US national anthem, and punched out a hard-hitting demolition of endemic racism whilst dressed in a newsprint outfit decorated with the slogan America Has A Problem.
Bruce Springsteen recently stirred President Trump's ire with a British tour full of fiery speeches and passionate polemical rock but Beyonce arguably made just as compelling a statement about America's fading dreams whilst dancing around a stage in cowboy chaps and a slinky leotard.
The UK audience did not seem to object to this US focus at all, having arrived dressed in enough cowboy hats and boots to stage a re-enactment of How The West Was Won.
Beyonce landed in London for the opening of a six-night stadium residency, which will see her perform to about a quarter of a million people. It may not be quite a match for Taylor Swift, who entertained over a million fans (1.38 million) in the UK last year, but in terms of scale, chutzpah, choreography and sheer bravura vocal pyrotechnics, Beyonce absolutely bossed it.
It is a bombastic spectacular attack on so many levels, but at base level she knows she can out-sing almost anyone on Earth, delivering a stripped back version of her song Daughter that would have had them tossing bouquets at the Royal Opera House. There may be bigger-selling pop stars but it's hard to argue that there's any more talented and charismatic right now.
Her latest tour is based closely around her latest album, which is a bold move for a stadium show. Beyonce squeezed in snippets of all her monster hits but played 17 songs from last year's warped country masterpiece, Cowboy Carter. And her audience knew every lyric and sang along like it was their perfect set.
'I love being closer to you all,' she beamed, whilst flying around the stadium on a glowing horseshoe. Spoken like a true Queen.