INGLEWOOD, CA — A vision in white fringe strutted slowly down a catwalk as pyro popped behind her.
“Can you hear me? Or do you fear me?” she intoned, luminous in her cowboy couture, caramel-hued hair billowing.
Dancers streamed from the sides of the stage, a small city’s worth of precision-footed enthusiasts who bowed and bended to their queen.
“They used to say I spoke, ‘too country.’ And the rejection came, said I wasn’t, ‘country enough,’ ” she sang, snapping the lyrics of “American Requiem.” “They don’t know how hard I had to fight for this when I sing my song.”
And so, the gospel of Beyoncé
commenced.
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On Monday at SoFi Stadium just outside of Los Angeles, the musical champion unveiled her stadium spectacle in support of last year’s Grammy-lauded “Cowboy Carter” album, the first of five shows at the venue and one that prompted equal cheers for Beyoncé
’s mother, Tina Knowles, and Oprah Winfrey as they were spotted heading to their seats.
Beyoncé, 43, isn’t circling the globe as exhaustingly as she did with
2023’s Renaissance World Tour, but the 2 ¾-hour, seven-act show she’s created is worth enshrining.
All of what she’s endured since daring to stake a claim in country music with the ambitious “Cowboy Carter” release is alluded to throughout with shrewd artistic strokes.
You want to question her love of her homeland?
Here’s a from-the-gut, lights flashing red, white and blue, words soaring under the potency of her voice rendition of “The Star-Spangled Banner” paired with the thundering backbeat of “Freedom.”
Beyoncé setlist:
All the songs on her Cowboy Carter tour
You think this zig into country instead of the expected zag into more hip-hop-pop-R&B hits is disingenuous?
Beyoncé will
gladly remind you of her sincerity with a series of clips featuring forebears Chuck Berry, Tina Turner and musicians on the Chitlin’ Circuit alongside current-day news clips smarmily questioning her musical intentions plastered across the towering stage-length video screen.
The majority of the songs – 19 of the 36 she and her ace band supplied – came from “Cowboy Carter.” So while the ricocheting keyboards that open “Formation” prompted a roar from the crowd and the welcome arrival of her most sizzling smash, “Crazy in Love,” instigated a late-show frenzy, this tour isn’t about the Beyoncé of the past two decades, but the musically adventurous chameleon of her last two albums.
That isn’t to say she’s abandoned the gargantuan set pieces and numerous chic costume changes of tours past. If anything, she’s amplified the production, pairing her signature fierce arm movements and hip jutting with a ride across the stadium seated in a flying red neon horseshoe (a fiddle and brass-laden “Daddy Lessons”), riding a glided bull (“Tyrant”) and getting back on the horse(shoe) for a zip to the back of the stadium and a drop into a raised lighted stage
(a loose “Cuff It” straight out of a 1970’s disco).
Costume changes were frequent, usually a riff on skin-tight sparkles and cowboy hats, and Beyoncé sported the fashion with her usual stylish grace.
She moves with impressive fluidity, rapidly crossing her ankles with every step as she and her glam squad edge down the stage for “Jolene” (with a spoken word intro from the other queen of everything, Dolly Parton) and engaging in her broken windup doll moves behind a gold photo frame during “Cozy.”
Her stylistic whiplash is impressive, how she can so seamlessly swap personas. The arrival of Blue Ivy, the oldest daughter she shares with husband Jay-Z, during the bass-heavy “America Has a Problem” paired with “Spaghettii” prompted an
appreciative bellow from the crowd as on the Renaissance tour, and Beyoncé couldn’t control her smile watching her 13-year-old grab the spotlight.
But from rhyme spitting, Beyoncé can pivot into glistening balladeering and a highlight of the show came during its quietest moment. As she sang “Protector” over a plucked banjo, her female dancers arranged on a pyramid of steps and Blue Ivy behind her, Beyoncé also welcomed 7-year-old daughter, Rumi. The personality-packed kid spent her stage time waving excitedly and hugging her mother tightly, causing Beyoncé to barely finish the song through her tender bemusement.
But those small moments underscored Beyoncé’s evolution not only as a singer and songwriter, but as a person. The career retrospective that played before she took to the stadium sky for a ride in a car during “16 Carriages” reminded fans of her tribulations as much as her triumphs.
About an hour into the concert, just before “Desert Eagle” introduced the fourth act of the extravaganza, a stylish Western film played, featuring Beyoncé and a craggy cowboy in a shootout. Her nemesis unloads a hail of bullets, but they bounce off her and fall harmlessly to the ground, once again proving that Beyoncé is bulletproof.
