Beyoncé points the way to a show like no other
The pop superstar’s powerful moves elevate an event in need of such vision.
One thing’s for sure: Coachella will never be the same again after Beyoncé’s history-making, bar-raising, monumental achievement on Saturday.
So given that fact, where does the show go from here?
There is exactly no one else working at her caliber of creative vision, execution and universal star power today.
Coachella will probably just have to accept that this was a lightning bolt from a better world. How can it help future headline acts put on shows with as much thrill?
There are only a few Coachella-suited touring acts who can draw comparable crowds: U2, Metallica, Rolling Stones, maybe Green Day on a good day. None of them are, to put it gently, working at the top of their game and appealing to the young, black vanguard that made this Coachella so different.
That’s where its future lies, and even if there’s no Beyoncé-level talent waiting in the wings (how could there be?), maybe the festival needs to make even more of an investment in cultivating it.
This year had more women in prime support slots (Sza, St. Vincent, Haim, Alison Wonderland) than any in recent memory, and while these acts need no introduction to fans, increasing diversity on the biggest stages will naturally yield a different vision of what a headline set can look like.
St. Vincent’s drippy minimalist videos, Sza’s campfire hangout motif and Haim’s ultra-close-up iconography of their faces each made powerful visual statements. No one can match Beyoncé’s physical prowess or budget for stage plotting, but at at least she’s started the conversation about how to elevate the experience.
Maybe more acts need to imagine Coachella not as the kickoff to a summer tour cycle but as a show between records, one to plan for as a unique occasion.
Beyoncé is due for a victory-lap tour with Jay-Z, and her cancellation last year due to her pregnancy may have been a blessing as it gave her an extra year to think, dream and plan the live show out.
That time and effort paid off. Maybe bands at that level need to imagine a headline less as promotion and more as a chance to reignite how the public sees them and their vision.
There are all sorts of things that get in the way of this — budgets, scheduling, the existentially painful condition of Not Being Beyoncé.
But if you’re anyone capable of playing to 20,000 people a night, you had to walk away from that set feeling humbled and challenged. It’s likely time to take that feeling seriously, and for Coachella to support them any way it can.
At a show whose currency is built around the urgency of “being there,” that’s the moment you’ll come home to tell the world about.