Jay Z and Beyonce Will Be ‘On The Run’ at the Pasadena Rose Bowl

Matt McAllister

Every concert-goer demands two things of performers, the first is public displays of privacy (i.e. an expression through one’s innermost, personal feelings) and the second, a spectacle largely through virtuosity. If John Legend’s visit to the Hollywood Bowl later this month will provide us with the former, the arrival of Beyoncé and Jay Z will royally satisfy the competing expectation.

The On the Run Tour, with its lavish production value and eye-popping effects, denotes the high water mark of this summer’s stadium concerts. Beyoncé (or Queen Bey, as she will be referred to only in this parenthetical aside) and Jay Z’s concert tour has set records all over North America this summer and the show has garnered reviews that range from generally positive to gushingly fanatical. Two things seem to be certain when the show opens up in Pasadena tomorrow: the crowds will be huge and thoroughly entertained.

The concert, as the tour’s title indicates, is loosely linked by a convicts-on-the-lamb theme and opens with the headliners emerging in dark leather, gold chains, and a fishnet mask. Jay Z’s 2002 song “’03 Bonnie and Clyde” appropriately kicks off the musical narrative, quickly followed by “Upgrade U,” and then by the first showstopper, the ever-popular “Crazy in Love.” To list the songs that the duo performs would engulf more than the entirety of this column, since the show includes part or all of 44 songs encompassing the last decade-plus of the performers’ careers. It is safe to say that anyone with only a passing acquaintance with either performer, or anyone who’s been within earshot of a radio in the last ten years, will find something familiar to latch onto.

A few critics have noted that the tour is a narcissistic cash-grab, and indeed it could be viewed as such, but to note this and then step away is to implicitly denigrate the millions of fans who enthusiastically attend. Clearly, there is something more going on here than just pop-star fanaticism. In recent years the popular music crowd has increasingly demanded the element of authenticity and the aforementioned public displays of privacy. The oxymoronic mainstreaming of Indie music can be viewed as just one instantiation of this phenomenon. A nearly impossible task in a stadium show, Beyoncé and Jay Z achieve this through the foregrounding of the shared escapism.

At the start of the show, when the theme is being established, the large screen spells out “This is not real life,” insisting that the audience acknowledge the façade they are about to enjoy. Toward the end, the screens show the pair’s home movies of their children, then they read “This is real life.” Here we see why these two sit far atop the music industry already awash with incredible talent. They know that bald-faced flash would be met with cynicism, but by letting the audience in on the joke they are able to connect in a way that wins them over immediately.

Jay Z and Beyonce’s On The Run Tour will be at the Rose Bowl August 2 and 3.