Beyoncé in Sunderland – Review’
Steve and Karen on the breakfast show were hearing from gig-goers like Laura who REALLY enjoyed it
Steve and Karen on the breakfast show were hearing from gig-goers like Laura who REALLY enjoyed it...
Our reporter Emily Reader was there to review the show
They call her Queen Bey for a reason, she is pop royalty and last night she certainly didn’t disappoint. Performing to a 50,000 strong crowd here in the North East, Beyoncé blew the roof off the Stadium of Light with her Formation World Tour. Her set-list caused a bit of controversy though with fans left baffled that the star didn’t sing one of her most iconic tracks, but we’ll get to that.
In true diva style, Beyoncé kept the crowd waiting, 45 minutes to be precise, but despite standing in the rain fans were quick to forgive her. The crowd went wild as she opened the show with a dance and pyrotechnic filled performance of ‘Formation’. She must not have checked the forecast though as she definitely wasn’t dressed for the wet weather, sporting a corseted leotard and oversized hat.
As the gig went on Queen Bey played quite a few songs from her more recent album ‘Lemonade’ as well as some from her previous album ‘Beyoncé’. Having had both of these albums in my car and mastered a fair few of the lyrics, I enjoyed her singing album tracks but I think some of the crowd were just waiting for her to belt out the bit hits. She didn’t keep them waiting too long, putting on a fierce performance of ‘Run The World (Girls)’ alongside her incredible backing dancers.
When you’re a world famous superstar, I imagine it can get a bit tiring singing your heart out to crowds of thousands of people night after night. Do you know how Beyoncé deals with this? She just gets the crowd to sing the song for her! When it came to singing ‘Love On Top’, Queen Bey set the crowd off Acapella style before letting the fans take to centre stage. It was amazing to hear the sound of fans singing their hearts out, echo around the stadium.
Much to the delight of fans, Beyoncé put together a mash-up of some of her biggest hits including ‘Crazy in Love’ and ‘Party’ as well as Destiny’s Child classics ‘Bootylicious’ and ‘Survivor’. Anyone who’s seen Beyoncé in concert before knows that it’s as much about her costumes as it is her music and she pulled out all the stops in Sunderland. She showed off her array of one piece’s including a red latex one and silver fringed one, but my favourite was the leotard she closed the show in which was completely embellished in silver crystals.
As if the rain all afternoon wasn’t enough for fans to stand in, Queen Bey then performed ‘Freedom’ off her latest album with a highly energetic dance routine, involving water. Fans lucky enough to get close to the stage were absolutely soaked! You’ll have to ask them if it was worth it… I’d have been fuming!
As the clock ticked towards 10:30pm, fans were shouting for some of Beyoncé’s big hits that were yet to be sung, most notably ‘Single Ladies’. We all know (or pretend to know) the dance moves and even those of us with two left feet can manage the wave of the left hand which tends to accompany the song. As the diva belted out ‘Halo’ crowds were sure that ‘Single Ladies’ would bring the show to its end, but the song never came. As we left the stadium it seemed all the fans had the same thought as me, why would you leave out one of your most iconic tracks? Well if her latest album is anything to go off, maybe she’s just outgrown the song.
All in all, I thought she was absolutely incredible, a class act that pulled out all the stops. I’m sure her less than modest costumes have motivated a lot of the crowd to get squatting too!
She is still the Queen in my eyes.