Sounds Write - Beyonce in Liverpool

In fact, since the break-up of Destiny’s Child, the girl group with whom she first built her reputation, Beyonce’s career has only ever gone one way and that is upwards, with hit albums following hit singles, a thriving acting career, the development of her own fragrances and clothing range, getting the ‘gig’ to sing at the President’s inauguration and, together with her similarly ultra-successful rapper husband Jay Z, forming the most powerful marital union in music and possibly the entire entertainment industry.

In truth, Beyonce is now very much a global phenomenon and a potent brand name that just about every company wants to attach themselves to for their own self-gain.

Back in the UK last week for further concerts (after her sold-out earlier May shows) on her lengthy ‘I Am….’ World Tour to promote her current mega-selling album(‘I Am…….Sasha Fierce’), Beyonce demonstrated once again over the duration of a two-hour plus hi-energy show that she is an artist equally strong in the fields of song, dance and performance.

And, she is supremely adept at delivering the goods in any one of a range of music genres, be it shiny pop, R&B, soul, rap/hip-hop, gospel, body-thumping club/dance mixes, all of which the singer served up over the course of her around twenty-five song exquisitely staged and polished show.

From the moment Beyonce first came into the audience’s line of vision at Liverpool’s 10,000 capacity arena, having appeared in a blinding flash of light whilst spaceship-like light fixtures buzzed and swirled overhead in what seemed like a nod to the movie E.T or Close Encounters, all eyes amongst the predominantly female crowd were fixed firmly on her and the atmosphere reached a frenzied fever pitch within seconds.

Looking nothing less than bootilicious in her signature gold sequinned leotard style dress adorned with a huge bow on her backside, Beyonce launched immediately into ‘Crazy In Love’, her first solo hit, shaking and gyrating her much admired frame in full-on mesmerising fashion from the off (she really has got all the moves) whilst belting out the vocals – certainly no lip-synching whatsoever from this lady.

‘Naughty Girl’ was the next number, interspersed with a little snatch of ‘Love To Love You Baby’ – Donna Summer’s 1970’s disco classic – then straight onto ‘Freakum Dress’, during which she fell to the floor in, what resembled a convulsing yoga position on her back, as her guitarist unleashed a Hendrix style solo.

And all this before she had barely stopped for a breath – remarkable.

It was all very infectious too with her energy levels being such that everyone was rocked out of their seats and stayed up for the entire performance.

In a great statement of empowerment, Beyonce was backed by a ten-piece all female band and a trio of female backing singers called The Mamas( fair to say rather big ladies with mighty lungs to match, squeezed into tight dresses that rendered them looking rather fearsome) but all on stage were clearly chosen for their musical excellence.

And, along with a phalanx of well-drilled male and female dancers, they maintained the show’s momentum superbly whilst Beyonce was momentarily off-stage for her frequent costume changes.

Beyonce is clearly very comfortable and happy with representing a healthy looking role model for today’s young girls in a world where size zero is, sadly, more often promoted by the fashion industry as being something to aspire to.

There were at least eight costume changes during the evening for Beyonce, the majority of which were a series of figure-hugging outfits, each one seemingly designed to showcase her spectacular curves in an ever-more revealing fashion and any man present with a dodgy ticker had good reason to be worried, especially when the singer re-appeared for her rendition of ‘If I Were A Boy’ sporting the highest heels, the tightest and shortest of leather outfits complete with, what looked like, pointed armour breast plating and topped off with a sexy leather cap and NYPD oversized aviator sunglasses.

This song was a definite highlight amongst many on the night as Beyonce superbly interwove Alanis Morissette’s ‘You Oughta Know’ within her performance.

The pace of the concert was significantly slowed in order to form a great segment that impressively showcased Beyonce’s awesome vocals.

Standing centre stage, she was visibly transformed into a perfect bride as her dancers attached the fluffy pieces of a white wedding gown to her leotard, completing the look with a head piece/veil and then Beyonce proceeded to wow all present with the purity of her voice on stunning, pitch-perfect versions of ‘Ave Maria’ and the beautiful Sarah McLachlan ballad, ‘In The Arms Of An Angel’, both truly spine-tingling moments.

At the conclusion of these songs Beyonce succeeded in whipping up the crowd once again to near hysteria levels by simply standing there motionless under the lights for what felt like an age.

The action then transferred to a small, second stage, located in the middle of the arena to facilitate greater interaction with the crowd and to enable those at the back to get a much closer look at the proceedings. Beyonce reached this stage with a very Cirque du Soleil moment, ‘walking’ through the air, high over the audience’s heads and performing a series of mid-air somersaults along the way, suspended from the arena’s roof by just a trapeze-style harness.

Having descended onto the mini stage, Beyonce upped the ante and pace once again, metamorphosing into her sensual and aggressive alter-ego, Sasha Fierce for a series of songs from the album that officially introduced us to that character responsible for all her booty-shaking numbers.

We also got a medley of songs from the singer’s Destiny’s Child days, Beyonce in playful mode with the crowd on ‘Say My Name’ – picking out a guy in the audience and instructing him to say ‘Beyonce’ with her then repeating his own name back to him before getting the entire crowd singing along with her on ‘Irreplaceable’.

As if all this was not impressive enough, Beyonce fairly floored the audience with her magnificent rendition of Etta James’ ‘At Last’ that she had sung at Barak Obama’s swearing in ceremony(with the images replayed on the giant video screens above the main stage) and, a full-throttle, raw emotion version of ‘Listen’ – her big number from the Dreamgirls movie.

There was also a reminder of how it all began for the singer with the screening of some grainy home video footage of a young diva in training aged about seven years old and already revealing her precocious singing and dancing talents, with these images interspersed with a camera focused on the now grown up ‘finished article’ on stage.

The visual juxtaposition is compelling and works effectively for the crowd, creating a connecting dream between her youthful ambitions and her ability to have achieved them.

In her umpteenth outfit of the evening, a gorgeous black and silver leotard-based dress, Beyonce ‘played’ two of her biggest trump cards to draw the show to its conclusion, performing first ‘Single Ladies’ whilst amusing Youtube footage of hordes of imitators attempts at the song’s familiar dance moves were displayed overhead as she herself perfectly reproduced all the moves on stage.

Finally, in a poignant tribute to Michael Jackson (that seems to be standard concert procedure at the moment by all big name artists), she urged everyone to hold aloft lighters, mobiles and glow sticks and dedicated the song ‘Halo’ to the memory of the ‘King of Pop’, whose giant image was beamed across the video screens and she told the audience that, “Michael was my very reason for getting into the music business.”

For most of the performance of the song Beyonce went down amongst the first few rows of the crowd(chaperoned unsurprisingly by three of the meanest looking heavies), touching fans’ hands as she went (though no doubt having some sanitising liquid at the ready off stage) and allowing them to sing lines to the song along with her.

Then, with her parting message, ‘I Am…..yours’, Beyonce was gone from the stage in a blink of an eye.

What a star she is and, it’s easy to forget that this Texan lady is still just twenty-eight.