(Stockholm) Futuristic decor, grandiose costumes and fans in fusion: seven years after the last, the American superstar Beyoncé began Wednesday evening in Stockholm a four-month solo mega-tour with a very big show.
Successively perched on a lunar module, queen bee, flying on a diamond horse above the crowd, television news presenter, or even popess, “Queen B” delivered a performance of more than three hours to launch her Renaissance World Tourwhich could top the astronomical sum of $2 billion in revenue.
“I’m speechless, it was just incredible, extraordinary,” Shane Barkey, a 31-year-old Irish radio host, told AFP.
“She did not promote her album, so there was a lot of expectation about what she was going to do,” said the young woman at the end of the concert.
Many admirers had come from across the Atlantic, from the United States a lot, but also from Brazil, to make sure they were the first to discover the blockbuster, one of the most anticipated of the year.
“I just wanted to tell you: you make me so happy,” Beyoncé launched in front of a 60,000-seat stadium devoted to her “queen”.
“I see familiar faces of the people who flew from very, very far to see the first show tonight,” she said, drowning out the cheers of the crowd.
The first, which has been the subject of major rehearsals near Paris and in Stockholm in recent days, has already appeared to the millimeter, without any hiccups.
“I’ve seen her since her first concert […] There it was still a level above for Beyonce, incredible, “says Abdul Ibraimoh, a 33-year-old Londoner, who has tickets for London, Barcelona and Miami.
Jackpot ?
Several hours before the appearance of the ex-Destiny’s Child, on the stage of the Friends Arena, the large stadium in Stockholm, hundreds of admirers had calmed their impatience by singing and dancing in the queues, covered cowboy hats and rhinestones that make up their idol’s new outfit.
“She’s the queen, that’s why we’re here,” Kasher Bloom, a 36-year-old Latvian from Riga, told AFP.
Announced last February, the tour is Knowles’ first solo tour since 2016, as the COVID-19 pandemic long kept stadiums from filling up.
“She hasn’t performed for so long, and this is the first concert, and we don’t know anything about this one,” explains Gabriel Cardeal, a 27-year-old Brazilian who also purposely went through the Atlantic.
Due to high demand in Stockholm, a second date has been added on Thursday, before the tour continues this weekend in Brussels.
In France, she will be in Paris – for a single date, to the great despair of her French admirers – on May 26, then in Marseilles on June 11. The tour currently has 57 dates in around 40 cities.
In February, Beyoncé made pop history by surpassing the record for the number of Grammy Awards – the musical equivalent of the Oscars – previously held by bandleader Georg Solti.
But the top prize for best album once again eluded rapper Jay-Z’s wife, in favor of British pop star Harry Styles.
Renaissancehis latest house and dance opus, has 16 tracks, including his latest R&B hit Cuff-it. He was released last July, further sculpting his statue of the undisputed queen of the dance floor.
At only 41 years old, “Queen B” has extended in three decades an empire which she set out to conquer with the group Destiny’s Child – and its boxes Survivor And Say my name — when she was still a teenager.
The jackpot of Renaissance World Tour however, remains to be confirmed. According to the estimates of Forbesthe tour’s revenue could reach $2.4 billion, but the low range drops to $275 million.