She came on stage in a shimming silver outfit and stood on stage alone in dry ice and lights, posed and let the Acer Arena crowd of teenage girls scream (and I mean scream) their little lungs out in rapturous delight and adoration. Beyonce is in the house complete with pyrotechnics, flashy video backgrounds and a tight, all female, ten piece band.

The girl can sing. The girl can dance. She’s taken some good advice about theatrics. The simple staging, in stark contrast to Australia’s own Diva, Ms. Minogue’s huge set, worked a treat. This was all about Beyonce’s voice, front and centre and that takes some talent. A tiered, stepped stage where the band held court, showcased some awesome video wizardry and lighting. The stairs became a video screen and lit up to superb effect.

Miss Knowles went through most of her hits including a great Destiny’s Child medley including Survivor, Bills Bills Bills and the very fabulous Independent Woman. Of course, the pre-pubescent crowd was here to hear the songs from BDay, her latest album and she didn’t let the audience down, the highlight being an awesome high energy rendition of Ring The Alarm.

She knows how to hold her audience. During an extended version of Dangerously In Love, she showed off her vocal gymnastics and swanned around the stage teasing the crowd with long acapella notes and the crowd went wild. The biggest reaction of the night was for Irreplaceable – you know, “to the left to the left”. The audience ate it up.

As I said, the girl can dance and she can dance and sing at the same time, and she really looks like she enjoys it rather than going through the motions.

There were a number of costume changes where she went offstage and we saw the band and the dancers do their thang but that did slow things down. She only arrived in Australia that morning so maybe she needed rest breaks? At the end of the day the crowd were there to see her and the musical breaks were just too long. She kinda lost the crowd at times when she sung some less familiar songs but that is standard when everyone wants to hear all the big hits. And big hits we got, Beautiful Liar, complete with Shakira accompanying on video screens, Crazy In Love, Naughty Girl, Check On It, but where was Deja Vu?

Towards the end of the concert she seemed to get a bit tired and the show ended suddenly. No encore. No encore! I think she was over it. My friends said they saw her action to the band that that was it. No more. And there we have it.

She came, she performed, she gave herself. She’s loves the people in the back of the arena, and up at the top and at the sides. She knows how to work it but personally, I came away wanting more.

She is the #1 pop diva of the moment after all.

By acidjasmine,
samesame.com.au