Ever since her announcement of a World Tour back in February, Beyonce’s fans have highly anticipated her return to the stage. The ticket sale for the tour, called ‘Renaissance World Tour’, crashed the O2 Priority site, leaving fans crushed at the thought of missing out on what they fear is her farewell tour.
Well, 3 months after her tickets went on sale, the ‘Queen Bey’ has shut down her first concert in Stockholm, Sweden, filling the Friends Arena with an intensely choreographed performance, with music from her heavily successful seventh album ‘RENAISSANCE’.
She took the 46,000 fans in attendance through her decades of music, performing some of her signature songs, ‘Crazy In Love’ and ‘Love On Top’ alongside her more recent hits ‘BREAK MY SOUL’ and ‘COZY’ with the show lasting almost 3 hours.
The tour, which has 56 dates, is expected to last until September and in that time, Beyonce will be expected to perform in London, Stockholm, Brussles, Cardiff, Sunderland, Paris, Barcelona, Marseille, Cologne, Amsterdam, Hamburg, Frankfurt, Warsaw and also in North American cities.
So far, social media have only been able to get an insight of what to expect from the first two concerts that took place in Stockholm, so what was it like?
Instagram, Twitter and TikTok have kept the performance trending in searches and hashtags with some, surprisingly, mixed reactions.
Speculation rose that she is suffering from a leg injury, which limited her from performing to the extent her fans have always known of. Although unconfirmed by the singer herself, it is suggested that this is why there was less movement from her at her first concerts.
However, the second set of opinions supported the performance, saying it was what they expected.
The show, which is her first global performance since 2016, included 9 outfit changes, with the stage having a giant glitter horse, colours, confetti, and a giant clam that she sang inside of.
Fans also pointed out that colours of the Progress Pride Flag was presented on the stage graphic, a reference to the LGBTQ+ community.
Beyonce has incorporated LGBTQ+ references into her work throughout her career, with iconography dating back to her 2016 song ‘Formation’ which included the voice of social media presence Messy Mya, who was well known within the gay community in New Orleans before his death in 2010.
The show also included a breakout voguing segment as well as a mini ball, both well known activities associated with the community.
The next show will take place on May 14th, at the King Baudouin Stadium in Brussels.
As her tour continues, Beyonce’s fans hope that she will continue to deliver and increase the intensity of her performance as the dates go on.