I’ve spent the last 20 minutes trying to decide which moments from the Beyonce Bowl to turn into GIFs but there are too many. The whole performance was a GIF, non? There are too many facial expressions. There was too much weave-thrashing right up at the crowd. There are too many times she goes from shock to anger to sexy to surprisingly sweet in a matter of 5 seconds. There are too many awesome hair tosses. And there was that time she threw up the Roc.
Ok fine, we need to GIF her throwing up the Roc, if only for the side-eye.
She rehearses that sh-t too, right? Because with a Beyonce performance, it’s not just the dancing and the singing and the pointing and the wind-blowing but it’s also those goddamn expressions. Those expressions are always, ALWAYS perfectly timed. They are moves of their own. They mean something, they send a message, they add another level to what’s already way over the top.
So did she kill it, as they say? As so many have been saying?
Here’s what I’ll say, and I’m sorry if it sounds like a humble-brag. Last week, I received a media screener for B’s HBO documentary. You know, the movie she directed about herself? So, of course, obviously, I watched it -- twice. And now I wish I had waited until after the Super Bowl. Because 90 minutes of Beyonce on Beyonce is way better than 12 minutes of Beyonce. But also, having just seen 90 minutes of Beyonce, including past show and rehearsal footage, and if you’re a Beyonce fan to begin with, familiar with her appearances and all her routines, a lot of last night wasn’t new. Some of the visuals were new, but conceptually, for example the multiple Beyonces on those screens, she’d already had something similar in place -- at the Billboard Awards in 2011 for Girls, remember?
This doesn’t mean she didn’t own that motherf-cker, because yes, totally, she owned that motherf-cker so hard they couldn’t turn the lights on afterwards. But it’s not like she hasn’t been doing the Crazy In Love strut and thumb lick and the Baby Boy wind-grind hair-mill for years, right?
And then there’s Destiny’s Child. How did you feel about Kelly and Michelle sprung up from below like ninjas to protect the Queen? Well, some of you think she rewarded them by turning down their mics...
Exactly. This is exactly why...
You love her!
You hate her!
Does it matter?
She made a stage out of her own face... KISSING ITSELF.
Why do we still shake our heads over Beyonce’s prioritisation of Beyonce all the time?!?
And how can you focus on that in the presence of so many wind machines? There were wind machines for her own real fake hair and there were wind machines to create her hair out of white sheets that were billowing behind the two sides of her giant stage faces...
So many wind machines!
And when Beyonce attacks, well, Beyonce does not stop. Shortly after her Super Bowl performance, B confirmed that she’s going on tour. The Mrs Carter Show will kick off in Europe in April, around the time of the release of her next album. They’re making it a big deal in England. She’s even modified her trademark strut, royal styles, for the occasion. I really, really love it when she struts.
PS. OMG that documentary. More about the documentary when we get closer to the air date but, Jesus, it’s so bad-good, I might have to live-blog.
Attached -- photos include shots from Beyonce’s Instagram.
