Marndizz’s Goss Blog

Beyonce “I Am…” Tour, Brisbane Entertainment Centre 20/09/2009

Beyonce is better looking in person. She is absolutely stunning! Her makeup, her wig and her costumes were all flawless. Photos simply don’t do justice to all three.

I had a floor ticket with a not so great view (that will teach me to miss Jessica Mauboy and Flo Rida!) but there was a great atmosphere. To be honest, I wasn’t all that excited about seeing the concert, possibly because I shouldn’t have been going in the first place and because I went on my own. However, I decided that after Michael Jackson died, I would never miss a concert I really wanted to see ever again.

Having said that, as soon as the lights went down, my heart started pumping and I got excited. And not just in a “wow, this is so cool” way. I mean in a totally crazy fan-girl way. Beyonce burst onto the stage in a puff of smoke and started the show with an amazing and high energy “Crazy In Love”, complete with live horns. She knew how to get the party started, and the high energy hits kept coming- “Naughty Girl”, “Freakum Dress” and “Get Me Bodied”.

After a costume change, she came out in all white and sang “Smash Into You” and “Ave Maria”. “Smash Into You” was simply stunning but her staging and ridiculously soppy rendition of “Ave Maria” almost could have ruined the show for me. During the song, dancers came up and attached a mock wedding gown to her white leotard, complete with a veil. It was awful. It was obviously intended to invoke romantic emotions, but it was simply way too over the top. She should have kept it simple: her standing under a white spotlight like she did for most of the song would have sufficed and would have kept that emotion. It’s such a beautiful song and it’s a shame she had to kill the mood with something so corny.

She quickly redeemed herself after taking the wedding crap off and singing “Broken- Hearted Girl”. After another costume change, she sang “If I Were a Boy”. The costume and staging of this was so epic, and what pleased me most is that she had the song flow into a rendition of Alanis Morrisette’s “You Oughta Know”. “Diva” was fun but one of the highlights of the show for me was “Radio” which sounded so good live, it was almost unrecognisable musically for the first few bars. I have had trouble listening to that song on the album, but she really took it to another level with the music, choreography and amazing vocals. She then sang “Me Myself and I” for the ladies.

One of the highlights was when she “flew” out on stage from the main stage to a second smaller stage in the middle of the crowd. She looked amazing and had the whole crowd singing “Irreplaceable”, “Check On It” and songs from Destiny’s Child. “Upgrade U” was so high energy and incredible! “Video Phone” was creative and once again, incredible staging and concept. She played with the crowd a little with “Say My Name” by picking out a guy from the audience and making him say “Beyonce” and she sang his name back to him. It was a lot of fun.

I didn’t expect to get emotional during her ballads, but she really sounds so much more amazing in person vocally. During “At Last” and “Listen”, she stood there and delivered the vocal goods and I couldn’t help but shed a tear.

The last 2 songs were also a definite highlight. “Single Ladies” was one of my favourites- epic dancing, singing, and the fact that she stopped and said “Ladies, put your hand right in his FACE…”. The crowd went mental! Just as people thought it was all over, she came back out and sang “Halo” while interacting with the crowd. At the end of “Halo”, a large HD picture of Michael Jackson popped up, the crowd went crazy, and she sang her stunning tribute to Michael Jackson. People were crying and cheering and it was all for Michael. She ended the show on a happy note and said “Brisbane, I am… yours” before leaving the stage.

The stage seemed a little small and crowded to me- but this was Brisbane after all. I got so used to seeing the DVD’s of previous concerts that I forgot that in person the stage would be smaller and the band would be closer together. It didn’t really matter though, Beyonce made excellent use of the stage space and aside from the big screens either side of the stage, there was a massive high definition screen at the back of the stage which showed everything from home videos of Beyonce dancing as a young girl to images of President Obama and epic video montages in between some songs.

The “I Am…” show was far more theatrical than any Destiny’s Child or previous Beyonce concert I have seen. The interludes and breaks for costume changes were short and tight, proving that Beyonce just gets better. Everything was professional and well organised.

Beyonce’s vocals were simply stunning. She sounded better on stage than on her albums and she danced and sang live at the same time with her totally awesome all-female band providing some of the best pop concert music I have heard. The vocal stand outs were “Radio”, “Broken-Hearted Girl” and “Listen”.

I was disappointed with some things in the show. Aside from the awful staging of “Ave Maria”, the Destiny’s Child medley was a little choppy and didn’t flow as well as the rest of the show. She also didn’t perform songs that you would expect- “Sweet Dreams”, which was replaced by a video montage (which looked amazing, but it would have been much better if she performed the song live), and songs like “Déjà Vu” or “Ego”. She opted for album tracks like “Radio” and “Video Phone” that don’t even have a video clip. But overall, the show was amazing, and she really worked it out. Impressive, fun, professional and theatrical!