What Beyoncé Gave Us

Washington shares her experience in attending the Beyonce's brilliance concert in Houston TX that was held from Sept 23-24, 2023. Beyonce's assignment for previous cities had been simple: wear silver. Houstonians also obliged. Her own aesthetic was something like femme biker cub, alongside a silver cowboy hat, an outfit she passed at least nine variations of on the way to their seats. Both evenings, Beyonce's first address, entering a stadium that hit an astounding decibel, and an electricity she'd conjured entirely on her own, was: "Houston, TX, I love you." She called this series of performances, a global tour that began in Stockholm this May, her "gratitude tour" Then, she proceeded to grace the audience. Beyonce began with the operatic, before dipping coolly into a deep trill. Beyonce rolled from a crisp set of notes into a growl and back, before descending again, only to ascend seemingly six more octaves a second later. Beyonce vogued with a series of robot arms, cascading directly into a croon. Beyonce vogued with a team of glowing dancers, as they snapped fans and duck-walked and clicked heels alongside her Beyonce rapped and rode a metallic tank on stage while numerous outfit changes unspooled before the audience. Between each section of the set, house music blasted beside kaleidoscopic visuals. In the midst of its immaculateness, each evening's rollout achieved, and then eclipsed, what might be the highest bar for a performance: a solid night out at the club. Beyonce's performance simply escalated, ascending a mountain of precision with no visible climax, and then it ended.