Intro for October 3, 2018

Dear Gossips,

I looked at my watch when Beyoncé and Jay-Z came down the elevator last night to open the show in Vancouver. It was exactly, exactly 930pm. And from there, everything else was just as precise. 

There’s now only one more show left – in Seattle tomorrow night. If you’re going then, be ready. There’s a looseness you can sense in their performances now, now that it’s almost over. B was as playful and spontaneous as I’ve ever seen her and she rewarded Vancouver, the only Canadian stop on the OTRII tour, with several new outfits. Like, I was just hoping to see the new Vivienne Westwood that I posted about yesterday, with the tulle cape flying behind her. We got that. We also got this at the start of the show:

And a white swan dress she wore for "Resentment": 

And my favourite – a brand new Gucci, from head to toe that was like skin on her and amazingly, none of it moves even during all her complicated choreography: 

The tour is almost over and she is still saving up new costumes to reveal. Seattle, I hope you’re ready. 

The best part for me? It was at the end, during "Apesh-t". Because "Apesh-t", even though it’s a song credited to “the Carters”, is a showcase for Beyoncé. There she is, tearing up the song, rapping with so much skill and speed, her flow smooth AF, while Jay-Z, one of the great rappers of all time, is happy to stand there, nodding his head, in admiration and disbelief – the look on his face was basically, can you believe she just did that? How can she do that? All of that?!

All of it. She does all of it. And because of this, because the people who work with her every day see her working so f-cking hard to be able to meet her own exacting expectations, they bring their levels up as well. This is what Fiona, who had just seen Beyoncé for the very first time, remarked on when we were on our way home – she was so impressed even by the performance of the onstage photographers shooting every shootable moment, working in tandem, one in front of the other, so that the person behind acts like an anchor and a flight tower, for balance and for sight, swiveling the person with the camera in the direction of what needs to be captured – be it a hair toss, an expression, a hip shake, whatever it is that can’t be missed. The machinery of it all is breathtaking. Seeing Beyoncé at work is breathtaking. 

Yours in gossip,

Lainey