The lovely people at Nokia have been giving away tickets for Rihanna shows around the country. Luckily, TT managed to nab a pair and Olly and I headed over to the London O2 Arena last week to see Rihanna live on her Rated R tour.
I consider myself a Rihanna fan. She has some amazing records, her image and style are fierce and you never hear any tales of her behaving like a diva bitch. It was with a positive frame of mind that I took the coveted seat next to Olly and prepared for my socks to be rocked off.
Unfortunately this did not happen. Opening a set with a slow song is always a risk, and here, it was definitely a mis-fire. Russian Roulette is undoubtedly a thrilling and atmospheric song, but it doesn’t set the mood for a stomper of a show. Still, I loved when her dress illuminated with red LED lights as she began the first chorus.
Shedding most of her clothes for Hard which truly suited the post-apocalyptic theme, Rihanna made full use of a pink tank setpiece while her dance troupe postured with rifles, before stomping down the catwalk to do Shut Up And Drive, again centered around a vehicular prop, the audience were treated to some truly ramped up guitars. A lot of the numbers were intensely rock-infused, in fact. RiRi herself steps up to the plate during Rockstar 101, thrashing at her black guitar impressively, but unfortunately we were too far away to see if her moves were real or make believe. All the big hits and my favourite album tracks were performed - Te Amo, with spinning, airbourne dancers; Don’t Stop The Music, temporarily turning the venue into a ravespot, as lasers flashed around the arena; and the final encore of Umbrella, proving why it spent so long (10 weeks!) as a UK #1 single - and taking its place as a classic record in the making.
For all the flashy production though, this show left me ice cold. Rihanna’s attempts to engage with the audience were limited entirely to her screaming “London! London!”, and despite offering major popstar-face in music videos and paparazzi snaps, Ri failed to create those all-important couldn’t-possibly-look-away moments, that come top of the superstar job description, in a live setting. The ballads she performed imploded under an incredibly weak live vocal, and the “end of days” concept wasn’t fully realised, with lacklustre costumes and stage settings, quickly falling apart after the inital few numbers - the one notable exception being Disturbia which featured giant monster dancers to put even the theatrical Lady GaGa to shame, with their entrance, on stilts, managing to be both camp and menacing. Worse though, we weren’t lucky enough to see one of Rihanna’s headline-grabbing stumbles played out live.
There were highlights though - her acoustic version of Wonderwall worked incredibly well, and Breakin’ Dishes, a Good Girl Gone Bad album track was easily the performance of the night - energetic and with a choreographed dance routine that much of the show lacked. Run This Town with Jay-Z on the back screens remains one of the best songs Ri has put her name to, and there is definitely no mistaking a catalogue of hits that, in terms of quality, match or even eclipse stars such as Beyoncé.
Overall, it wasn’t a show I’d like to see again, and I am yet to see a Rihanna performance that is of the standard I would expect from a supposed international superstar. With that said, she continues to improve every year, and hopefully next time around she will be hitting her weight when it comes to her live performance.
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