Black leotard, back crunching heels and a hair cut that would intimidate any heterosexual male, Rihanna has landed. It’s been a while since the Barbadian beauty toured, but she’s certainly making up for lost time with her 2010, Last Girl On Earth extravaganza. In support of her brilliant album Rated R, the queen of vampy ensembles brought to Glasgow’s SECC a post-apocalyptic vision of the contemporary pop-concert. Military, metal, gas masks, weird stilt wearing monster people, two giant metal guns and a pink tank; every prop oozed Rihanna’s pop identity. In a surprisingly brilliant performance, Rihanna captivated everyone in the audience, especially me, who was slightly doubtful of her live quality. What a fool I was.
Following a strong support show from Pixie Lott, the arena went black (30 minutes later of course) and everyone went insane. A screen illustrating the idea behind the tour is filled with distorted images, Rihanna is dreaming but her dreams are real - thus we are living her dream. A simple concept, which is revealed to be infused with military chic, so this girl obviously loves soldiers, guns and tight outfits. Rated R’s intro track ‘Mad House’ kicks in and shortly ‘Russian Roulette’s’ riff screams into the arena. The final gun shot of the track is accompanied by a visual of a bleeding human heart. The biggest surprise is Rihanna voice, which is pretty damn good. I expected some mild screeches and breaks, but she kept it together and delivered a massive punch. Descending from her podium and simultaneously changing costume, the face slapping “yeah yeah yeah” of ‘Hard’ pounds its way through my ear drums. Engaging the crowd for the first time, mainly getting us to sing with her, turns out to be one of the best qualities of Rihanna as a live performer. For the whole show she engaged the audience and made sure we were doing some work too, whilst intermittently reassuring us of where we were, “Glasgow! Make some fucking noise!”.
Hit after hit, she battered out consistently strong vocal performances and cut some impressive shapes, mainly with her ass, which took on a life of its own during the intoxicatingly delightful ‘Rude Boy’. Encased in a black latex leotard and thigh high latex wedge boots, Rihanna belted out ‘Rockstar 101’, ‘Hate That I Love You’ and ‘Rehab’. Of course there was a ballad segue, which included an amazing performance of ‘Unfaithful’ and the new single ‘Te Amo’. The latter was accompanied by two aerialists who ‘stole the show’ (excuse the cliche) by doing things in the air I didn’t think a human body was capable of. Rihanna proved that her classic songs still have relevance and still sound good alongside her new, improved, edgier sounds. Barely dressed, in a white strappy (I mean just straps) number, she belted out ‘Please Don’t Stop the Music’, a welcome addition to the line-up, being about the most poppy of the whole show. ‘SOS’ sounded great with a rock remix laced through the original track, as did her final ballad ‘Take A Bow’. Another quick change of outfit and we were treated to a medley of ‘Wait Your Turn’, ‘Live Your Life’ and ‘Run This Town’, right before one more outfit alteration and ‘Umbrella’.
After 22 songs Rihanna showed no signs of failure. Her vocals remained brilliant throughout the entire show and blew all ideas of a ‘not so great’ singer out of my mind. It’s clear that Rihanna won’t be going anywhere. She seems head strong, intelligent, and most importantly she is a superstar-class live performer. She may have some great song writers behind her and some equally as talented producers, but the quality of her new music which had a substantial input from the lady herself proves her worth as a musical artist. Plus, she can still look like the coolest, sexiest woman on the planet after sweating for 2 hours, that means something, right? The show didn’t feel like a GaGa imitation (who her final outfit will no doubt draw comparisons to - bored), nor did it feel like it was themed. It avoided the ‘Britney Spears miming in a sort-of circus’ pointlessness and presented eager fans with a 100% live, mind blowing, Rihanna identity parade.
May 19th 2010 - LOVE.
