Beyoncé goes under an assumed name on her current tour: Sasha Fierce.
But the character she displayed in that guise at the tour’s Madison Square Garden stop last night wasn’t noticeably different from the one we’ve long celebrated.

Like that alter ego (who also graces her latest CD, “I Am … Sasha Fierce”), Beyoncé has always been sly, sexy, imposing and confident enough to make Kanye West seem like a recluse.

Never, however, has she distilled that character into something as focused, engaging and nuanced as now.
While past tours, either on her own or with Destiny’s Child, could be shrill exercises in preening, the new tour showed a huge upgrade in charm, humor and chops.

Right from the opening number, “Crazy in Love,” Beyoncé showed off pipes of steely power. As the song’s signature horn riff pumped away, she soared over the melody with athletic ease.

The way Beyoncé used her body intensified the sense of triumph. With her hair teased into Medusa-like tresses, a pelvis in perpetual churn and legs long enough to make Tina Turner proud, Beyoncé’s presence punctuated her singing like an exclamation point.

The show moved smoothly through its two-hour expanse. The costumes didn’t disappoint, including one getup that looked like Barbarella on a safari and another that depicted Beyoncé as an unlikely innocent in white.

The latter outfit appeared during the show’s most surprising stretch, a run of ballads early on that allowed Beyoncé to express something she rarely does: hurt.

Partly because her rise to fame paralleled that of hip hop, much of Beyoncé’s music has prized force over softer emotions. To this day, self-empowerment anthems almost entirely define her work.

Yet in songs like “Broken-Hearted Girl” and “Smash Into You,” Beyoncé showed us something more internal and deep.
In her pop rewrite of “Ave Maria,” Beyoncé hit notes with a new delicacy, then moved seamlessly into the final operatic crescendo. Such material, taken from the new album, helped provide a broader context for the star. It’s by far her most melodically sure, and musically diverse, work.

Beyoncé didn’t nail every reach. Her run at “At Last” still lacks the terrific sense of relief Etta James manages effortlessly.
But her take on “Listen” from “Dreamgirls” drew on both sides of her character, the pained and the potent. Mining those two emotions made this Beyoncé’s greatest live moment.

She’s perfected a character that cannot be denied – no matter what name it goes under.

Source: NYDailyNews