Fireworks, feuds and mega-medleys: Queens of Pop Beyoncé and Taylor Swift are in town

It's Bey versus Tay
Taylor Swift performs on Reputation tour in Manchester on June 8, 2018. Photo by Dave Hogan
Getty Images

You wait ages for a high-production spectacular and then two come along at once.

Tonight, the Beyoncé and Jay-Z juggernaut rolls into town — the power couple will be at the London Stadium in Stratford for the first London night of their joint tour, On the Run II. Meanwhile, Taylor Swift is sharpening her steps and warming up the fireworks for her own run at Wembley next weekend.

Tay and Bey are consummate superstars and veterans of the stadium spotlight — assume glitter canons and high-octane brass bands, emotional encores and ambitious big numbers, and (poorly) veiled references to feuds and infidelities. This is what you need to know about the two biggest productions of the year.

Showstoppers

Swift’s Reputation tour is her first since she took a turn for the wicked. The old Taylor can’t come to the phone right now — Taylor reincarnated wears spangled bodysuits and sings revenge songs. Spot the difference, though this time she’s added thigh-high sex galoshes, and (some of) the revenge songs are about Kim, Kanye and — meta — the old Taylor.

The album is slick; the set-list alternates revving anthems old and new (...Ready for It?, Blank Space) with acoustic numbers, mega- medleys and gentler, singsong pop. The staging is massive and mischievous: huge snakes are coiled around microphones and rear into the sky as 30ft inflatables. Kim Kardashian, infamously, called Swift a snake.

On the Run II is Bey and Jay’s second tour as a power-couple. Obviously, it also comes loaded with drama — since the first time, Jay has admitted cheating on Bey, and she released the raw, genre-bending Lemonade. Like Swift, they sent up their own controversies on stage: on their opening night in Cardiff they appeared on-stage in an elevator — a nod to the now infamous footage of Beyoncé’s sister Solange going for Jay in a hotel lift.

They’ve done this before and they’re seasoned showstoppers: highlights of On the Run II include matching all-white outfits accessorised with boulder-sized bling, and Bey cavorting accompanied by a jazz band positioned over four storeys.

Before the tour started the pair renewed their vows. As the show opened, intimate portraits, including ones from the ceremony, are beamed to the fans. The set list includes ’03 Bonnie & Clyde, Run the World and 99 Problems; there will be a tour-de-force version of Crazy in Love. The show ends with a duet on Young Forever.

Beyonce and Jay-Z: On The Run II UK Tour 2018 - In pictures

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Numbers game

Swift is doing 53 dates across North America, Europe, Oceania and Asia. The finale will be in Tokyo in November. In London she’ll be at Wembley: both dates are almost sold out though you can find a few (unatmospheric) seated tickets going for about £90. In three days, Swift’s tour grossed $180 million from 33 dates in North America alone. The first date in Phoenix, Arizona, set venue records for both gross and attendance. At almost 60,000 tickets sold, she outdid One Direction — the previous record holders — by more than 2,000 seats. Billboard estimates that the six-month tour might gross as much as $400 million.

Meanwhile, On the Run II has 48 dates across Europe and North America, kicking off in Cardiff and crescendoing to its final act in Seattle on October 4 — in the capital they’ll be at the London Stadium. Tonight’s gig has sold out but there are tickets for tomorrow’s available, starting at £51. In Glasgow, they were reportedly being given away. Saying that, Billboard estimates that it could gross between $180 million and $200 million — last time around, they managed a mere $95 million.

Beyonce performs on stage during the "On the Run II" Tour with Jay-Z at Hampden Park on June 9, 2018 in Glasgow, Scotland
Getty Images For Parkwood Entert

The crews

Team Tay includes support acts Camila Cabello and Charli XCX: the former is an X Factor and Fifth Harmony alum, the latter a British electro-popstrel whose brand is hard partying and high-tops. Cabello described the call-up as a “dream come true” — she’s both a fan and a friend, and Swift reportedly counselled Cabello through a break-up. “She sent me a break-up playlist and said, ‘Come over. Let’s talk about it’, ” Cabello told People magazine. “I think the Haim girls were there. It was, like, a girls-night thing.”

Charli XCX, meanwhile, wants to collaborate with Swift. “I’d love to do something super-emo with her, like [Russian duo] t.A.T.u’s All the Things She Said — oh my God, that would be amazing.” On tour, Swift has invited the other two on stage to perform a version of Shake It Off.

Fans were also frenzied to note Tay’s boyfriend, the actor Joe Alwyn, bobbing along at the side of the stage during several of her North American dates. Alwyn’s a Londoner — fingers crossed he makes it to Wembley.

Bey’s rider obviously includes Jay and their three children, six-year-old Blue Ivy and one-year-old twins Sir and Rumi: last week, Bey wished the twins a happy first birthday onstage. On the North American leg of the tour the power couple will be supported by social media’s DJ Khaled, the rapper with whom they released Top Off, and the man crowned The King of Snapchat — he was a middling music producer and DJ until the world discovered his account, a genre-defying combination of life advice, ugly selfies and snapshots from the baller life (gold sinks, bowls of glassy green apples).

Khaled, sadly, isn’t joining for the UK leg, nor is the other support act, soulful R&B sister act Chloe x Halle.

Taylor Swift - In pictures

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The hypebeast

Both stars are social media queenpins. On Instagram Swift has 109 million followers to Bey’s 115 million though, classily, neither follows a single account.

Tay has been sharing pictures of her glitter suits alongside sweeping audience shots that twinkle with the lights of 100,000 cameraphones, and candids of her cats, Meredith and Olivia Benson.

Bey’s feed is simply magnificent: raunchy leopardprint bodysuits and suspenders; old-school Destiny’s Child press pics and shots from the family album. There’s a sequence of her dressed as an Egyptian queen, stomping up the stage, eyebrow cocked. It’s an awesome exercise in tour promotion — you cannot help but worship at the altar of Bey

Critics’ choice

Both tours have, inevitably, floored critics, who have grown ever more agitated by the pressure to conjure hyperbole. Swift has been “resplendent” and “breathtaking”. Meanwhile, Bey’s offering was “spectacular”, a “sensory overload”, and “heart-stopping”.

In other words, in the battle of the bands, there are no losers: god save the Queens of Pop.

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