Photo: Beyoncé opens the Renaissance World Tour at Friends Arena in Stockholm, Sweden / Andrew White
After half a decade away, Beyoncé is back in the UK, bringing her Renaissance World Tour to stadiums and arenas up and down the country, beginning with a night at Cardiff’s Principality Stadium on May 17.
Now almost 30 years deep into a glittering career, she's presided over her fair share of show-stopping and legacy-defining moments in the live arena, without even mentioning her 200 million record sales as a solo artist, becoming one of the best-selling of all time. So in anticipation and celebration of one of music's all-time superstars, we compiled her most iconic live moments to get the party started.
Glastonbury 2011
Beyoncé closed the 2011 edition of the world's most famous living music festival. While Friday and Saturday were headlined by Coldplay and U2, it was Beyoncé's performance that left its mark the most on Worthy Farm. “A girl, a woman, a young lady has not headlined in 20 years so this is history for me," she beamed to the colossal crowd, having whipped through a delicious medley of her biggest hits, as well as those of Destiny's Child. Bootylicious, Irreplaceable and If I Were A Boy all went off to rapturous singalongs, while covers of Kings of Leon's Sex On Fire, Eurythmics' Sweet Dreams (Are Made Of This) and Alanis Morisette's You Oughta Know showed that she can do it all. A true performance for the ages, whatever Zane Lowe may have snidely thought of it.
Super Bowl XLVII Half Time Show
While the Baltimore Ravens and San Francisco 49ers duked it out in a game for the ages atSuper Bowl XLVII in 2013, Beyoncé's halftime show still managed to make headlines. Across a nine song setlist that included Halo and Baby Boy, she was joined on stage by Destiny's Child bandmates Kelly Rowland and Michelle Williams in a surprise reunion that would break the internet. It became the most tweeted about moment of all time with more than 268,000 tweets per minute. “What’s more, she filled the television screen, a human pneumatic drill of intensity, constantly bouncing and whirring,” Jon Caramanica wrote in the New York Times. “This is part of what set her apart from some past performers, whose songs were big enough, but whose attitude and presentation weren’t.”
Beychella
When Beyoncé became the first Black woman to headline Coachella in 2018, she gave the performance everything she had to make sure people would remember that history had been made in the California desert. The set became Coachella's most viewed performance and the most viewed live music performance ever on YouTube, and she immortalised the whole stunning spectacle with her Emmy-nominated Netflix documentary 'Homecoming: A Film By Beyoncé' which drew an estimated 1.1 million viewers in its first weekend. Coachella hasn't been the same since.
Pregnancy announcement
By 2011, Beyoncé knew how to seize the moment, which is exactly what she did with her live performance at the MTV Video Music Awards. Not only did she deliver another masterclass, she imbued it with the magic of announcing her first child with husband Jay-Z. While singing Love On Top, she opened her jacket and revealed her bump to the shock and delight of the watching world.
Wowing Celine Dion at her own special
One of Beyoncé's first iconic live moments should have hinted at the greatness to come, but back in 2002, Beyoncé and Destiny's Child had only really been in the public consciousness for a year. So when Celine Dion recorded a concert special at LA's famous Kodak Theatre and invited Bey, Kelly and Michelle to perform The BeeGees and Samantha Sang's Emotions alongside her, nobody quite expected Beyoncé to show up like she did. Just watch Celine's face before the two minute mark and tell us that isn't real recognising real.
2016 MTV VMAs
When life gives you lemons, make lemonade. When life gave Beyoncé lemons, she made…well, ‘Lemonade’. In the aftermath of a scandal that rocked entertainment's most powerful couple Beyoncé dug deep and used the hurt to create some of her best work. 2016's visual album was adored by fans as soon as it was surprise dropped on Tidal, but it was her medley of songs from the album at the VMAs that year that really showed how to make the most of a bad situation.
The set pieces and the outfits
So this isn't a moment as such, but Beyoncé brings it every single time to make her performance worth your hard-earned money. Expect countless wardrobe changes that include designs from the world's biggest fashion houses and eye-catching spectacles that have seen drum lines, pools of water and Hollywood grade movie sets used in her live shows. Of course those who want to know what they're in for on the UK leg of the Renaissance World Tour can head to YouTube, but we'd recommend keeping it a surprise for yourselves.
Beyoncé Upcoming Tour Dates are as follows:
Wed May 17 2023 - CARDIFF Principality Stadium
Sat May 20 2023 - EDINBURGH Murrayfield Stadium
Tue May 23 2023 - SUNDERLAND Stadium Of Light
Mon May 29 2023 - LONDON Tottenham Hotspur Stadium
Tue May 30 2023 - LONDON Tottenham Hotspur Stadium
Thu June 01 2023 - LONDON Tottenham Hotspur Stadium
Sat June 03 2023 - LONDON Tottenham Hotspur Stadium
Sun June 04 2023 - LONDON Tottenham Hotspur Stadium
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