Beyonce’s the queen of glittery glam at BankAtlantic Center

Leslie Gray Streeter | Palm Beach Post

SUNRISE – The big productions of the past that Beyoncé’s Monday night event paid homage to were clearly in evidence — Tina Turner/Ann-Margret-style shorter-than-short shiny leotards and hordes of backup dancers, the Cher-esque costume changes and Barbra Streisand-like devotion to the singular diva.

Beyoncé knows well that while the hey-day of those divas might be fading from memory, our public desire for sparkle and shine, shirtless dancers and mind-blowing spectacle is not. And, based on her BankAtlantic Center show, it’s hard to imagine Beyoncé ever fading. In fact, she’s getting better. Shockingly better.

By the time huge curtains parted to reveal B. taking possession of the stage to the jazzy strains of Deja Vu, which morphed into Crazy In Love, the crowd was fairly freaked out. The hits came fast and furious, many cut into seamless montages (shades of Vegas!). Naughty Girl, Freakum Dress, Get Me Bodied and more were melded with the darndest things, including Sarah McLachlan’s Angel and Alanis Morissette’s thumpingly bitter You Oughta Know.

She also honored Michael Jackson with a snippet of Beat It, and recalled her BET Awards performance of Ave Maria, set to a backdrop of rolling waves and the ever-present wind machine that blew Beyoncé’s hair and wedding dress costume.

In between, the gracious hostess wasn’t too lofty to debate a marriage proposal and chat with a giddy fan named Antoine, who I suspect may have been a plant. Who cares? He channeled what everyone else was thinking.

The biggest numbers were the ones you’d expect — a surprisingly effective sing-along of Irreplaceable and the inevitable Single Ladies section, preceded by a YouTube buffet of amateur and professional interpretations of the dance that launched a million black leotards.

The effect was to acknowledge Beyoncé’s sense of humor — “Look at all these people imitating me! Funny!” — and her knowledge of her singular fabulousness — “Look at all these people who wanna be me and can’t!”

Her dancing? Flawless. Her voice? Flawless. Her stage presence? No words for it. It doesn’t matter that Beyoncé’s shtick isn’t original. She’s an observant student of the glittery teachers that have come before, and she’s been able to seamlessly weave them into her own brand of rock/r&b/Vegas-palooza. Makes you giddy wondering what’s next to come.

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.
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The Edmonton Journal

When it comes to Beyonce,

Edmontonians should perhaps consider themselves very lucky.

Lucky that the “bootylicious” superstar even decided to grace an Edmonton stage again after her last turn at Rexall Place in 2007 only drew a crowd of 7,800 people, but even luckier that Beyonce would

launch her brand new tour supporting her latest album, I Am … Sasha Fierce, in the City of Champions.

Whether it was a momentous occasion or just an opportunity to work out the kinks in front of a “modest” audience — because, once again, only 8,000 fans turned out — will be left for those who attended to decide.

If Beyonce’s first outing on her I Am tour was no major disappointment, it was still a somewhat muddled affair, one that didn’t clear up where the line between Beyonce and her “alter ego” Sasha Fierce is drawn.

If Beyonce is the soft-spoken side and Sasha is the brazenly hyper-confident persona, the whole concept never really spread its wings properly Thursday night at Rexall.

Opening with some momentous numbers — Beautiful Nightmare and Crazy In Love, which were peppered with touches of Eurythmics’ Sweet Dreams, DJ Kool’s Let Me Clear My Throat and The J.B.’s Pass The Peas — you would have thought Sasha was already in the house.

Add a rump-shaking Freakum Dress and, three songs in, Beyonce — ahem, Sasha Fierce — was already in full-blown party mode, shaking her golden sequined, bow-clad tush and flailing her hair about wildly.

If only it had stayed that way.

The quieter, more introspective segment that followed was a collection of moments ranging from mildly corny (Ave Maria and an awkward onstage wedding gown transformation) to supremely boring (Satellite).

Apparently, we were still in “Beyonce” mode. If it took a few moments for Beyonce — uh, Sasha — to regain her mojo, she did manage to pull it off with the help of her 13 musicians and backup singers, a slew of dancers and harder-hitting material like Halo, Irreplaceable, Survivor and At Last.

It wasn’t always perfect, and it did feel like the show dragged on for a tad too long before it finally got to the smashtacular Single Ladies (Put A Ring On It)

Figured…all her shows seem to be the same. She needs to re-invent her style or something…looks like Beyonce Experience pt. 2.

Beyonce puts a ring on Rexall
By MIKE ROSS, SPECIAL TO SUN MEDIA

Why on Earth would Beyonce choose Edmonton to be the first date of her new world tour?

Two words: Paid rehearsal. If something went wrong at Rexall Place last night, who cares? It’s Edmonton. Work out the kinks in the hinterland before upcoming dates in places like Vienna, Prague, Paris and London. Makes sense, doesn’t it? It may also explain the “no media” rule in force at the show last night. You wouldn’t want some kind of bootylicious wardrobe malfunction on the front page of the Edmonton Sun, would you? Or maybe you would.

Well, anyway, media ban or not, we can still buy a ticket – lots were available – and review the show. One word here: Spectacular.

I don’t know what she was worried about, if indeed she was. There were no kinks, not a single bad note or missed cue was evident. Drawing just 8,000 fans, far less than is expected at Britney Spears in two weeks, the show had all the high-production bells and whistles you’d expect from the African-American queen of all media. As with her tour in 2007, there was also the extra-large all-girl band, the phalanx of backup dancers drilled in the latest artful choreography, songs spanning a remarkable career – solo and with Destiny’s Child – in a wide range of musical styles, not to mention a remarkable vocal range, and of course the riveting presence of the star herself.

The tour is called I Am … to support her latest double album I Am … Sasha Fierce. So in addition to seeing Beyonce’s alter-ego (that would be Sasha Fierce), which as far as I can tell is just the uptempo side of this ridiculously gifted artist, we can fill in the blanks in that loaded ellipsis at will. I Am … the new Tina Turner. I Am … one hell of a singer. I Am … blessed with a great butt. And so on. Sure, it’s a bit of a self-centred title for a tour, but in what was basically a celebration of all things Beyonce, who else would you want in the spotlight the entire time? Her image – in one revealing costume after another – filled the video screens. Her voice filled the arena. The extra-large all-girl band filled the spaces between, buying time for costume changes.

There was little that was subtle about this show, but some of the Canadian musical homages were appreciated – like a snippet from Sarah McLachlan in her a version of Ave Maria, or a blast from Alanis Morissette’s You Oughta Know in If I Were a Boy, the latter seeing Beyonce decked out in some armour-plated get-up like Aunty Entity in Mad Max: Beyond the Thunderdome. Like I said, she’s the new Tina Turner.

You might also quibble with some of the robotic wrinkles that weighed down the second half of the concert, though the flying through the air routine was entertaining in a Cirque du Soleil sort of way.

Beyonce can sing traditional R&B if she wants. She proved it late last night – wailing on the Etta James classic At Last, which she performed for the inauguration of U.S president Barack Obama.

There weren’t a lot of traditional R&B moments like that last night. Based on the new material, she seems more interested in reinventing the wheel and doesn’t seem clear on which way she’s going to go. With talent like this, it could be anywhere. It just doesn’t have to be everywhere.

The audience, which was forced to wait in the concourse for a full half hour while the band finished its soundcheck, got shafted on the opening act. It was just a mere four songs from 2006 Canadian Idol winner Eva Avila. She even seemed to forget the words to her own latest minor hit, from her second, album: Damned, as in “damned if I do, damned if I don’t.” There’s a message in there somewhere.