7

Thursday, June 16, 2016

The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com ARTS

Bey’s lively ‘Formation’

CONCERT REVIEW

By ADAM THEISEN

Managing Arts Editor

As I took my seat Tuesday night 

for Beyoncé’s Formation Tour at 
Ford Field, my mind jumped to the 
movie “2001: A Space Odyssey.” 
Dominating the stage before Bey 
graced it with her presence was 
an 
enormous, 
bright 
rectangle 

that nearly reached the football 
stadium’s ceiling. It reminded me of 
“the monolith,” a similarly imposing 
artifact of mysterious origin in 
“2001” that always seems to appear 
when the human race is on the verge 
of a huge new advancement.

It may be slightly hyperbolic to 

say Beyoncé is a full evolutionary 
step ahead of the rest of us, but I’m 
not exaggerating when I say her 
show was unlike anything I had 
ever seen. The Formation Tour is an 
extravaganza of world-class dance, 
technical wizardry and incredible 
music.

And it was like that from the very 

beginning. The crowd shrieked at 
the very first sign of movement, 
as the rectangle began to spin and 
pulsate, flashing images of Bey. Her 
dancers came out from behind to 
the first notes of “Formation,” the 
Queen herself appeared onstage 
and nobody in the audience could 
recover for the rest of the night. It 
was wild and loud from the front 
to the back, with cameras flashing 
from every corner and the bass 
turned up so high I could feel my 
throat shaking. Just the opening 
run included anthems like “Sorry,” 
“Bow Down” and “Run the World 
(Girls).” Within three songs, Bey had 
already shot off literal fireworks, 
when any other artist who brings 
fireworks always has to save them 
for the finale.

One of the many things that makes 

a Beyoncé show so unique is Bey 
doesn’t need to prove herself to you. 
She’s possessed by an unshakeable 
confidence gained from decades of 
hard work, and her fans love her 
unconditionally. If you’re not happy 
at her show, then that’s entirely your 
problem. Beyoncé yelling out, “Are 
y’all having a good time tonight?” 
would be like the Mona Lisa asking 
if you think she’s pretty — she 
knows she’s the queen, and she’s 
performing for her own art, not for 
any kind of validation.

That’s not to say she’s ungrateful 

in any way — far from it. You can’t 
hide any emotions when your face 
is on 200-foot tall screens, and 

Beyoncé was beaming whenever 
she looked out at the crowd — that 
kind of smile-with-your-eyes you 
can’t fake. She took the time, too, to 
recall her early days when Destiny’s 
Child was performing in front of 
grocery stores, and she made sure 
every woman at the show knew how 
special she was.

“There’s no such thing as a weak 

woman,” she preached.

Beyoncé 
is 
revolutionary 
in 

ways both big and seemingly small. 
Of course, this type of show is 
unprecedented — there’s a point 
where she literally walks on water! 
But she also employed the first Black 
female rhythm section I had ever 
seen in a pop concert, a nice change 
of pace from the token band of white 
dudes

And if she wasn’t there already, 

Lemonade has pushed Beyoncé past 
the point where her setlist can leave 
out massive hit songs and still be all 
killer and no filler — there was no 
“Irreplaceable,” no “6 Inch,” not even 
“Single Ladies,” for the love of God. 
But Bey made it feel like nothing was 
missing. She effortlessly hopped 
from hits to major album tracks and 
back to hits from all over her career, 
almost turning the whole show into 
a lengthy-but-coherent medley that 
occasionally was broken up by dance 
showcases and video interludes, 
courtesy of “Lemonade,” the film. 
With the lack of certain tracks, the 
concert never quite became the all-
out dance party it could have been, 
but signature songs like “Drunk 
in Love” and Destiny’s Child’s 
“Survivor” sounded reinvigorated 
by Beyoncé’s live energy, even 
though everyone in the stadium 
had surely heard them hundreds of 
times before.

While there were plenty of 

flashy effects and backing tracks, 
absolutely nobody could come out 
of Ford Field criticizing Beyoncé’s 
voice, unless somehow they went 
temporarily deaf for “Love on Top.” 
She did the a capella of a Whitney-
Houston-esque track from 4 on the 
B-Stage, surrounded by fans who 
got louder and louder as the song 
progressed. At the song’s climax, 
she repeats the refrain over and 
over, going up a pitch each time. 
It’s impressive enough on the 
record, where Bey presumably had 
unlimited takes to perfect it, but 
seeing her do it live without anything 
behind her, filling up the biggest 
room in Detroit with only her voice, 
was the most stunning moment 

I’ve ever experienced at a concert. 
It was like watching Steph Curry 
make his signature off-balance 
corner three-pointers. As each 
refrain approached, I instinctively 
knew Bey’s shot was going in, but I 
still found myself thinking, “This is 
unbelievable” every time she sang it.

Though the show was so tightly 

choreographed that there’s no way 
it changes much from city to city, 
Beyoncé took a moment to shout out 
Motown. When she talked about 
how stars like Diana Ross paved 
the way for her, it highlighted an 
interesting split in Yoncé’s musical 
personality. Beyoncé has scaled new 
heights in her career by pushing the 
boundaries of pop music with her 
last two albums, but she still reveres 
the classics. The two songs she told 
the crowd were her favorites to sing 
on tour — “Me, Myself and I” and 
“1+1” — would both sound at home 
on Janet Jackson and Etta James 
records, respectively.

It was fitting, then, that she didn’t 

close with a banger but with “Halo,” 
which she dedicated to the Orlando 
shooting victims and their families. 
Normally, it’s far from one of my 
favorites, but Beyoncé seems to 
live just to sing that song in front of 
50,000 people. Where it’s cheesy on 
the record, Beyoncé’s powerful live 
voice makes it earnest, joyful and 
inspiring. If you had told me before 
the show that “Halo” was her final 
song, I would have been skeptical, 
but now, I can’t imagine any other 
song taking its place.

I don’t know what more I can 

say to truly summarize Beyoncé’s 
greatness. I could talk about how 
unreal it felt to gaze in person 
upon a global icon. And I want to 
mention that my friend ranked this 
concert as one of her “Top 10 Life 
Experiences,” and I’m not sure if I’m 
that all-in, but it’s definitely a show 
I’ll remember for the rest of my life. I 
should say, too, I was almost brought 
to tears hearing Beyoncé perfectly 
belt out “Halo” with all she had just 
a few days after the absolute despair 
that was Orlando. But if you love 
Beyoncé, then you know exactly 
what kind of beyond-words power 
she has, and I can probably shut up 
now.

In short, just to reiterate and 

remind myself that this actually 
happened, I saw Beyoncé, and I 
could never see another concert 
again and still be satisfied. If not 
fully evolved, I feel changed, and I 
feel complete.

‘Conjuring 2’ a 
chilling sequel

By ALEX INTNER

Summer Managing Arts Editor

When looking for someone to 

see “The Conjuring 2” with me, I 
kept getting the same response: “I 
don’t do hor-
ror 
movies.” 

By nature of 
the film being 
in the horror 
genre, 
people 

didn’t want to 
see it. I don’t 
consider myself 
to be a “horror-
movie person” 
either. Still, when I watched “The 
Conjuring” on a random night on 
HBO, I was engrossed. It was a 
well-made movie which not only 
scared, but impressed with its 
technical work and storytelling. 
It’s the type of movie where, even 
if I’m not a horror fan, I could still 
appreciate it. The sequel’s ghost 
story, releasing three years after 
the first one, doesn’t quite pack the 
same punch as the first one, but it 
still maintained the same cinemat-
ic quality that made the first one 
such an engaging watch.

“The Conjuring 2” again follows 

Ed and Lorraine Warren (Patrick 
Wilson, “A Gifted Man” and Vera 
Farmiga, “Bates Motel”), who this 
time travel to England to investi-
gate eerie events happening in a 
London house. The Hodgson fam-
ily are being terrorized by an evil 
spirit, who takes possession of their 
daughter, Janet (Madison Wolfe, 
“True Detective”).

It’s in its story where “The Con-

juring 2” falters a bit, as it struggles 
with its character work amid a 
ghost story that isn’t quite as chill-
ing as the first. In this iteration, 
the franchise puts more of a focus 
on the Warrens, as if they realized 
they needed to build up the charac-

ters if they’re going to be the focus 
of the franchise. Only some of that 
characterization worked. The film 
cleverly interplays a ghost haunt-
ing Lorraine with the Enfield spir-
it, but when the focus turns to the 
Warren’s romance, the story stops 
dead in its tracks. Moments that 
are supposed to come off as roman-
tic feel out-of-place with the tone 
of other scenes in the film. Wilson 
and Farmiga try their hardest, but 
they still aren’t able to sell these 
scenes.

Still, “The Conjuring 2” fea-

tures scares enhanced by James 
Wan’s remarkable sense of horror 
filmmaking. Wan utilizes the ten-
sion and release method of horror 
filmmaking to his full advantage, 
letting scenes breathe. He doesn’t 
force moments of horror where 
they don’t belong, instead letting 
scenes breathe. There’s also no gra-
tuitous blood and gore that makes 
other horror movies so tough to 
watch. Instead, he relies on tried-
and-true jump scares. These ele-
ments make the moments where 
he chooses to scare you that much 
more powerful. He also puts an 
eerie look on the film, with a dark 
filter applied over pretty much 
every shot, especially when they’re 
inside the house being haunted. 
“The Conjuring 2” is a master class 
in how horror filmmaking can, and 
should, be done.

And yet, despite the same quality 

of scary moments, “The Conjuring 
2” ’s story didn’t play quite as well as 
the first iteration. The ghosts were 
more present on-screen than in the 
predecessor causing a subtle loss in 
the tension, but saying it’s slightly 
worse than an impressive movie 
isn’t meant to be a huge criticism. 
Thanks to Wan, the sequel still had 
many of the elements that made the 
first film so spine-chilling, and in 
this case, that’s just enough. 

B+

The Conjur-
ing 2

Warner Bros. 
Rave & Quality 16

WARNER BROS. PICTURES

“I told you not to enter the creepy room!”

 FILM REVIEW

