Beyonce - 4

link?

Incredible!

Fucking killing it.

bw:

http://www.ustream.tv/channel/glastonbury-festival---2011-live

thanks!

"the beautiful ones"!!

did she play "wonderwall"

Nah, she did "Sex on Fire" though

schoolin life is just about perfect really

I'd pay good money for a quality CD of last night's set. They should def release it.

wtf was tricky doing there? that was really weird. very odd match up. i was surprised by her, shes become a really powerful stage performer in the last 5-6 years, but she was quite immense yesterday. just a shame her band seems to sound so plastic - would be nice for them to sound a bit more 'live' and full bodied. she also does way too many shortened versions of her songs and medleys (she does each song pretty full tilt rather than explore the dynamics) but it was very cool to see her doing classic funk 'hit me 2 times'-type call and response routines and letting her girl-band do a few solos. shes obviously been watching prince, MJ, tina turner, JB etc. i know this is stating the obv but it was clear watching it tho how much of a heroine she is for a lot of girls. never seen that many women at the front at glasto.

but while i think its cool to get ppl like beyonce to challenge glasto ppl's preconceptions (did anyone see how angry zane lowe was afterwards?!?! - that was pretty interesting) i wouldnt mind seeing some R&B/soul artists like badu, alicia keys or even bilal perform there.

also the thing i found yesterday was that i liked how warm she appeared. made me warm to her. i mean shes still got the soul of a banker by and large but it was hard not to be won over.

Zane was forced into some major backtracking after taking something of a kicking on twitter. Pretty much all the BBC's presenters are unbearable though

zane lowe cant seem to talk in anything but hyperbolic soundbites.

beyonce was a 100 times better than jay-z at glasto in any case. shes a proper show-woman. did think she could have maybe done a more 'serious', less visual/presentation-based set for this crowd, maybe a more musicianly set (did love how some of the songs had great horn arrangements to flesh it all out) just to show a diff side to her, maybe a full on funk type of set, but that would prob be too left field for her to do.

Zane's continual digging after his initial dismissal was kinda lol but mostly sad.

(I like Laverne and Radcliffe fine, but the rest can fuck off.)

"ARE YOU READY TO BE ENTERTAINED?!" - felt like a prefix to "YOU HAVE 30 SECONDS TO COMPLY".

Haha, but yeah it was fantastic - a few bits that could have worked better. The backing band did feel a bit plasticky, and I wasn't sure how much of that was mimed or pre-recorded. The Destiny's Child Medley could have been better, but sounded slapdash, and maybe I'm asking too much hear, but if the rest of the girls had joined her at that point, it would've been the best Glasto moment ever.

But she seemed so pleased to be there - it felt like a real moment when she came down into the crowd and sang while touching everyone's hands - I was kind of worried for her life at that point.

Didn't notice Zane Lowe being any more of a dick than usual - what did he say? Mark Radcliffe and Jo Whiley were wasted in the wee hours after.

my spelling is right off today.

you guys do realise that this means we're going to see a massive spike in "indie peeps doing r'n'b", right?

do you think theres a lot of "indie peeps" who will have just found out abt beyonce due to his

the band had too many pre-recorded loops etc to work around. she needs to 'give up the funk' properly if she wants to be taken seriously. the DC medley was too stop-start. too choppy. i wanted to hear jumpin jumpin and bug a boo in full. also too many 'how many _____ tonight' and 'this is for all my_____'. tho i did want her to say how many ppl with their sex on fire tonight?

yeah i dont see beyonce at glasto = more indie peeps doing R&B. i think they all know about beyonce.

because traditional Glastonbury goers are exactly Beyoncé's fan demographic, of course

xpost

ps - the guardian review of the new album is that old boring 'why cant all R&B be futuristic' argument rock critics who never listen to R&B wheel out all the time

think the super-trending Janelle Monae performance would offer more in the way of that kind of revelation, really. Even though Beyonce was amazing I think there's still room for basic ideological objection to R&B/pop music in there (e.g. Zane's reaction).

sure, there is, thats why i wouldnt mind seeing someone like badu play a big stage at glastonbury, i dont think most ppl who go to glasto even know that R&B like that exists.

All Zane Lowe said was that what he saw of Beyonce's set was entertaining but he missed a load cos he went to see Queens Of The Stone Age instead. tbf the clip they showed of QOTSA doing 'No-one Knows' was incredible, probably the best thing I saw of the telly bits all weekend. Thought Beyonce was v good mind.

he said it was 'too vegasy' and he just looked very angry at the whole thing lol

wouldnt be surprised if they had to get rid of him for when beyonce came to be interviewed cos of that

though i would have liked to have seen him quizzing her

titchy, Glastonbury is a festival, not an R&B reeducation camp. I love Badu but I don't think she'd work especially well there.

Lauren Laverne said it wasn't as Vegasy as she expected and Zane gave an incredulous "that was pretty Vegasy". Don't think he said anything about it being too vegasy. You're right though he didn't seem that impressed.

fuck that, glasto IS an education camp for a lot of people

xposts

yeah i dont see beyonce at glasto = more indie peeps doing R&B. i think they all know about beyonce.

Sure, they'll have heard her stuff, but don't you think this might shift a lot of (rock/indie) people's preconceptions of pop/r'n'b performance? There are still a lot of people out there who object to acts like Beyoncé for one reason or another, but I think playing a festival like Glastonbury in this way could well inspire a lot of people to change that. Janelle Monae can only catalyse this.

I was initially very sceptical about Glasto this year. I think I said on another thread something along the lines of it losing its routes as a festival for music lovers, too many part-timers dragging their entire families down for the weekend because "it's Glastonbury and one should go" rather than any genuine love of the music or the culture.

But really what it's turning into is more than a rock festival. If anything it really is becoming a huge melting pot of modern entertainment - the Web2.0-age turned cultural event - and in many ways I respect that. A few years ago there would've been outrage at the very thought of Beyoncé headlining. Today it's being talked about as one of the best performances in the festival's history.

So those who want to go to a festival to see loads of music and talk with other people about music have plenty of smaller festivals to go to, in and out of the UK. I'm coming to terms with the fact Glastonbury is more than that - it's an unprejudiced amassment of pan-generational pan-gustatory entertainment rather than the hippie rock fest it once was. More power to that. Just get rid of the screaming kids, socks'n'sandles brigade, gazebo cunts, mud, rain, sunburn, portaloos and crowds and it'll be brilliant ;-)

oh, and Coldplay - can we not have them back again please?

i agree, but i think rock values will always be opposed to R&B. the idea of showmanship that is still there in R&B is along with things like guitar solos something not really popular in rock - its seen as artifice and not 'authentic' or 'real'.

guitar solos aren't popular in rock...?

or am I misreading you

guitar solos are probably at their lowest ebb of popularity in the history of rock music, fwiw

wasn't there just a whole ilm thread on this?

is Madonna still playing guitar

to clarify, no, i wouldnt say guitar solos by and large are at their most popular in indie rock these days.

lol duh, of course this conversation is in the context of Glastonbury/indie rock

never mind, continue ignoring me

a few xposts...
Perhaps what is likely to happen is that rock acts WILL rediscover the art of showmanship. For so long, the idea behind most rock music has been "We make music for ourselves but if anyone else likes it..." whereas Beyoncé is here to entertain YOU - hence why she had one of the most captivating sets of the festival. Why should a rock band making music for themselves bother with choreography and crowdpleasing? It's seen as a weakness or a pandering to commerciality in rock circles to be decadent with the stage design etc. But why not have more rock bands start thinking harder about the delivery of their live performances, breaking out of the "We're just gonna play our songs, no bullshit" stance that's kind of stifling; realising that rock bands can "play funky" and put on a show that doesn't have to involve bloated ELO-style set designs. I'm always reminded of how great a job Talking Heads did with Stop Making Sense - making the most of a really minimal set, not worrying too much about whether backing singers were on or off-stage, and incorporating the presence of their stage show with their chosen aesthetic - more rock bands should do this imo.

I don't wish for another surge of bad r'n'b vocal pastiche crossed with twee indie tropes, but I do hope a lot of kids who'd have previously shunned Beyoncé will sit up and pay attention to what she's doing as a performer.

Thought Coldplay put plenty of thought into their performance as far as making it a spectacle etc

just need to get the music bit right.

...and not look punchable.

chris martin is quite energetic and entertaining these days, i was surprised. they put on a good show. even though i hate them.

xpost - yeah i dont want any shit versions of R&B but if rock bands think about putting on a SHOW again in the way prince or beyonce or even monae do, i think that could be good. equally i wish more R&B artists would drop a lot of the plasticky, overproduced elements of their live shows and just get good to honest bands and let them play properly.

i mean, i like beyonce and mary j etc but their live shows dont sound live enough

^^^^ I agree with this. All of this.

not saying a rock show has to be like kiss or pink floyd but you know what i mean. something other than 4 guys looking painfully ordinary and dreary in their t shirts and jeans.

fwiw i think princes live band sounds too plasticky and slick these days too but he at least has the excuse of being old.

That's it. When rock bands think about upping their game w/r/t live shows, they all too often start adding explosions and giant balloons and glitter and 3D light displays, which is all very well, but I was impressed at how little of that shit there was during Beyoncé's set - some nifty lighting and backdrops, a wind machine or two, and that's more or less all she needed. Didn't need a UFO or a white horse or a goose egg or a meat dress to make it a memorable performance. Not even a costume change IIRC.

Kind of depends on the venue for me, if it's a huge festival and you're not playing to your own crowd then maybe a bit of spectacle is needed, or a big arena with most of the audience sat down. Otherwise I don't really need any visual displays or choreography etc. tbh most of the really great gigs I've ever attended have mainly been 4 guys looking ordinary in jeans and t shirts.

actually i suppose when you think modern rock showmanship most ppl prob think of u2

sadly, yes.