Jay-Z, Beyoncé break rules, keep magic going
Couple blows curfew with fresh spectacle at Levi’s Stadium
Like U2 and Coldplay before them, Beyoncé and Jay-Z blew right past the curfew at Levi’s Stadium on Saturday, Sept. 29, extending their On the Run II tour stop at the home of the 49ers just a few minutes past the city of Santa Clara’s 11 p.m. deadline for weekend concerts.
Even though that makes Beyoncé a repeat offender, it wasn’t entirely the fault of the pop power couple — known, in tandem, as the Carters.
The traffic getting into the venue was heavier than usual. There were several layers of security to shepherd the sold-out crowd of 49,000 through to their seats. And then there was the spectacle itself, rife with costume changes (approximately 11 for her, 12 for him), elaborate stage sets and too many hits to sensibly contain within its scheduled two-and-a-half-hour
running time.
When Beyoncé and Jay-Z set out on their original On The Run tour in 2014, it was easy to dial the show into the marital travails of America’s pop royalty: Was he really cheating on her? Would their relationship survive? What really happened inside that elevator with Solange?
Fast forward four years — to the previous week, in particular — and it feels like we all have much bigger problems to contend with than the domestic dramas of two people whose egos and bank accounts can bear to take a little bruising.
Maybe they sensed this.
Or maybe they’re simply eager to throw the attention off their personal affairs, which they have at this point thoroughly exhausted via a pair of “she said, he said” albums — Beyoncé’s sixth and latest studio album, 2016’s “Lemonade,” and Jay-Z’s most recent release, 2017’s “4:44” — and this year’s joint release, “The Carters: Everything Is Love.”
Having both made the rounds on separate solo dates in the intervening years in support of those releases, Bey and Jay brought a fresh bag of tricks to On The Run II.
They arrived onstage, naturally, in an elevator, walking onto a huge set that looked like a highrise wrapped in scaffolding and stuffed with backing dancers, horn players and pyrotechnics.
With two huge screens flanking the stage, there were lavish theatrical interludes between sets and extravagant visual moments where it wasn’t quite clear what was going on. The music touched on everything from reggaetón to gospel to Quiet Storm R&B to opera.
Beyoncé, trying out a new outfit, nearly suffered a wardrobe malfunction during “Family Feud,” as she struggled to keep her silver sequined jumpsuit from sliding down her chest while Jay-Z breathlessly barked, “What’s better than one billionaire? Two!”
While the original tour felt a little herkyjerky musically, swinging from Jay-Z’s gunfire verses to Beyoncé’s wounded ballads, this time the flow was a little more measured, with the couple finding new ways to trade verses and making room for each other and their shared pain.
After Jay-Z performed an emotional “Song Cry” at the end of one of the two parallel catwalks that jutted out on the stadium floor, he left the final note hanging in the air for Beyoncé to take her place at the end of the other one, sitting on the floor to sing a devastating rendition of “Resentment.”
They still haven’t figured out how to sound entirely compatible — he raps strenuously, huffing over abrasive beats (his misogynistic hits like “99 Problems” and “Big Pimpin’ ” sounded especially out of place); she croons beautifully over songs that are by turns celestial and commanding, but strains to make her own material sound more aggressive to match his combative energy.
But when they came together as one on songs like “Crazy in Love” and “’03 Bonnie & Clyde,” there was no doubt they were meant for each other.