IT STARTS with a deep, reverberating buzzing noise - like a swarm of bees making a sharp descent from overhead. It’s penetrating. The hairs on the back of arms stand up and the thousand-strong crowd begins to dart animatedly towards the stage.
Hair in braids, a face focused with power and intent, she struts, an Amazon..
That was a call to action from Beyoncé ‘Queen Bey’ Knowles to her feverishly loyal Beyhive, crowding the sell-out Manchester crowd at Old Trafford Cricket ground. Returning to the city after three years, the entertainer’s acclaimed Formation World Tour was only in town for one night and the buzz was palpable.
A high-octane, thunderous, visually arresting performance follows, with all the slick, painstaking precision that Beyoncé shows have come to be known for. Hair in braids, a face focused with power and intent, she struts - an Amazon -with a tribe of her leotard-clad dancers down the runway, breaking into bold, athletic choreography amongst pyrotechnics and splashing about barefooted in a water pool. Costumes are inconceivably sexy; figure hugging, jewel adorned and booty exposing – with some red latex thrown in for good measure.
Beyoncé, Formation Tour“Are you proud of where you came from? If you’re proud of where you came from, say 'I slay',” she orders as she booms into her hit controversial track, Formation; the lead song from her equally controversy-stirring new album, Lemonade. The mood is decidedly different to the pop perfect hits that she is known for; she returns to Manchester politically charged, a woman scorned, relentlessly feminine, sweary and uncompromising. After all, Lemonade tells a real story of infidelity and triumphing over it, while the underlying theme of supporting the ‘Black Lives Matter’ movement has found the Single Ladies entertainer at the centre of heated societal discussions for the first time. It’s also left her adoring audience with some seriously concerned questions – did her husband Jay Z cheat? What really happened in that elevator? And who is ‘Becky with the good hair’?
“Thank you for allowing me to grow as an artist,” she laments at moments to catch her breath. The good ol’ woman-empowering rhetoric is still very much a part of the Beyoncé menu – like a big sister, she tells her female-heavy crowd to find a better relationship with themselves, that all women are born strong and, of course, that we’re 'flawless'.
To appease long fans of her twenty-year career, the show is punctuated with slow-paced, beautiful renditions of past hits (although no Single Ladies?). A sing-a-long of Irreplaceable from her early albums provides sweet moments for the crowd to sing back to her. Survivor and Me, Myself and I were also brought out of the Destiny’s Child vault for serious karaoke moments. Her big ballad tracks, Halo and 1+1, are sung angelically as the sun sets on the stadium. Some people cry. Others sing loudly (and out of tune).
For a long and learned Beyoncé fan, the show provided opportunity to witness her much-documented growth, while also dancing wildly, hair flipping and bum flicking with a dangerous intensity. It’s been two decades of Beyoncé instilling confidence and making us feel like sassy Divas. We’re reminded, as she shares a rare clip of herself at sixteen on the big screen, that’s a long relationship - and she never disappoints.
