OTR II Tour at Ford Field in Detroit, MI
Written By | Jared Evangelista
Downtown Detroit was buzzing this past Monday; a day on which the city’s MLB team, the Detroit Tigers, were playing a home game the same night that Beyoncé and Jay-Z were scheduled to be in town. The streets were filled with people navigating their way from Greektown, to Comerica Park, and to Ford Field, the venue in which the famous duo would be performing in that night.
Ford Field, an NFL stadium with a capacity to hold up to 65,000 people on any given Sunday during football season, was packed to the brim with anxious fans awaiting the start of the show.
Finally, Jay-Z appeared and “Holy Grail” began to echo throughout the stadium. Four songs later and Beyoncé was suddenly on stage singing “Drunk In Love.” The two criss-crossed seamlessly and played hit after hit with the entirety of the audience singing along. Songs were strung together and sometimes separated by short artistic videos shown on the backdrop, creating a natural flow to the set which maintained the crowd’s energy while also pausing periodically for well-placed interludes.
The stage production was absolutely jaw-dropping. Spanning the width of the entire field, the stage included a huge video backdrop with a very weird wall of “chambers” in the middle section (you can have a look in some of the videos), a huge main-stage area, and two piers that jutted out into the crowd towards the soundboard. It wasn’t until half-way through the 44-song set that I realized a huge section of the main stage was also a moving platform that was now hovering across the field above all the attendees. There were also plenty of pyrotechnic explosions, which we all appreciate.
The show was non-stop for the most part, with Jay-Z and Beyoncé trading off songs throughout the set, and then periodically appearing on stage to perform together. Whenever Jay-Z was on stage alone, that no doubt meant that Beyoncé was somewhere backstage hastily racing through an outfit change, which there were plenty of. I swear, neither of them wore the same thing for more than 2 songs.
Eventually the night concluded with “APESHIT.” The show was highly entertaining, and I enjoyed the artistic effect of the video interludes quite a lot. The “chambers” with people dancing in them were particularly odd to me, but still interesting. All-in-all, it was a successful night for the two popular artists and an extremely entertaining show for all who attended.