Review: Beyoncé triumphs in her biggest-ever Seattle concert

Concert review

Beyoncé had just emerged from the first of many wardrobe changes befitting a pop star of her stature, dressed like some sort of cyborg ice queen. As the reggaeton-tinged “I’m That Girl” gave way to the sassy, sauntering beat of “Cozy” — a defiant self-love romper and celebration of Blackness — the mood inside Lumen Field packed with 57,000 of her loyal subjects noticeably upshifted.

Dancers vogued around her, framed by two giant mechanical arms that looked like they’d been plucked off a robot assembly line. But there was nothing robotic about the onstage revelry that spilled into the crowd and continued with “Alien Superstar” — an exaltation of individuality with nods to ball culture that had Beyoncé oozing extraterrestrial swag. They’re the kind of propulsive dance tracks that can make everyone feel like the sexiest person in the stadium-sized club.

Beyoncé and her much-hyped Renaissance World Tour came storming into Seattle on Thursday for the first time since her 2018 trek with rap star husband Jay-Z. The local date comes one year after her instant-classic “Renaissance” arrived, punctuating a remarkable three-solo-album run that fundamentally changed how albums are conceived and released. However, Thursday night wasn’t so much about looking back, as the show was predominantly grounded in Beyoncé’s current chapter — or era, one might say — drawing heavily from her “Renaissance” material that feels perfectly suited for the times.

By now, the premise of the pandemic-conceived dance album is a well-worn concept and, even before lockdowns lifted, a disco revival strong enough to reunite ABBA was underway. As is often the case with any venture her royal Bey-ness undertakes, it’s the subtext that makes it so powerful.

At a time when Black artists of all stripes are reclaiming artforms that have been appropriated or whitewashed over time (see the upcoming Black & Loud festival, organized by Seattle rockers King Youngblood and Down North), “Renaissance” arrived a deeply annotated celebration of dance music’s roots in Black and queer communities, touching a variety of scenes and subcultures from Chicago house music to New Orleans bounce and ballroom drag pageants. Beyoncé is hardly the first pop star to draw from these and other underground nightlife cultures, but the intentionality in both the album and the tour sets them apart.

It shouldn’t be lost that Beyoncé is helping put the creativity of oft-marginalized communities in the center of the mainstream pop universe at a time when hate crimes are on the rise and LGBTQ+ nightclubs have been literally under attack. (“Renaissance” was released just four months before a gunman targeted a gay nightclub in Colorado Springs, killing five people and injuring 25.)

It’s not at all treasonous to say that one of Thursday’s most potent moments actually came while Queen Bey went off for her final wardrobe change, ceding the spotlight to her battalion of dancers. Moving as fiercely and fluidly as any in the stadium pop tour game, they each took turns twerking and duckwalking on the massive circular catwalk, igniting the stadium while evoking the ballroom pageants conjured throughout the 2½-hour show.

Along the tour, Beyoncé had encouraged fans to wear their most fashionable silver attire in honor of her birthday earlier this month, and Seattle readily obliged, looking like a sea of human disco balls dotted with sparkly tasseled cowboy hats and even a few sequined beards. The only real audience failure came when Seattle (somewhat predictably) bombed the “everybody on mute” challenge — a fan-initiated crowd-participation bit during a springy “Energy” sparked by a viral trend. For the healthily offline among us, the audience is supposed to go silent when Beyoncé reaches the line “everybody on mute,” the music halting as long as a hushed crowd can last.

Seattle might have made it a half-second before an outburst of screams filled the dead space, leaving at least one-half of Les Twins, two of Beyoncé’s more famous backup dancers, looking dismayed. No matter. The letdown wouldn’t last. As the crouching, ready-to-strike queen bee worked a treadmill lining the runway, an extra jubilant “Break My Soul” came thumping in, popping like a bottle of bubbly we’d all been saving for a special occasion, with shout-outs to a number of influential Black women, including musician/model/actress Grace Jones.

As made-for-the-moment as the “Renaissance” songs and tour felt, a savory hits-stuffed segment that included thundering marches through “Formation” and a steamy “Partition” offered the highlight-reel element expected of artists with as many hits as Beyoncé. Joined by her 11-year-old daughter, Blue Ivy, who inherited some of mom’s dance moves, Beyoncé brought a dash of her famous Coachella performance to Seattle with a rapturous “Black Parade,” its fists-in-the-air crescendo garnering some of the wildest applause of the night.

Despite some fans speculating that the singer might have been a little under the weather, her voice was strong and booming through a louder, more echoey than usual Lumen Field — especially on some of the more luxurious disco-fueled numbers. A warmup opening run of ballads and slow jams, including a heart-fileting “Flaws and All,” felt like the queen beckoning all 57,000 fans in for a bedroom serenade before the splashy ball.

Over the past decade, Beyoncé has established herself as modern pop music’s greatest visionary — a legacy that’s still being written. And Thursday night gave Seattle a chance to bask in what will likely go down as one of her most vital periods.