On Tuesday August 1st, the 45th anniversary of my family moving to Toledo Ohio in 1978 when I was 13, Jakobi and I made the short drive from Millis MA to Gillette Stadium parking lot. The only traffic we encountered was when we reached RT 1 and had to travel away from the stadium to make a U-turn because extra lanes had been added traveling towards the stadium. We parked in the free lots across Rt 1 from Gillette arriving at 4:30pm and ate the sandwiches I had prepared for dinner while sitting atop the truck and watching the arriving cars fill the grassy lot and the BEYHIVE parade of fans in disco ball styled cowboy hats, fringed shorts, glitter boots and hand-held decorated fans.
Jakobi was in this lot with Ambiana a month ago for Ed Sheeran so she knew the way to the stadium and when we were done with dinner we set off joining the parade under dressed but undeterred. We passed under the road leading into the parking lot then waited en mass for a police officer to stop traffic so we could cross RT 1 and enter the outdoor mall that surrounds Gillette Stadium. We cruised it up and down checking everything out before heading to the stadium where the gates were open early so in we went.
Three hours before showtime with no opening act the concourses were practically empty and we found the bathroom and drinking fountain before slowly making our way around the stadium checking out the massive stage and light towers on the stadium floor. Unlike Taylor Swift’s concert in May we were able to walk behind the stage and complete a circuit of the stadium. Also unlike the Taylor show the concrete deck over the lower stands at the very back of the concourse had been walled off with plywood sheets on top of metal barriers obscuring the view. Upon investigation I saw that there was a row of lights assembled just below the wall and gear boxes and equipment took up the space that had been open in May.
Jakobi and I completed our lap of the stadium and went up the ramp to the upper tiers behind the stage. Outside the stadium there were three football practice fields and one of them was full of men in sweats and athletic shorts lined up and practicing. I approached the wall and asked an old man security guard if that was the Patriots and he eyed me warily and didn’t answer. Is it the Patriots right I again asked and he grudgingly nodded and eyeing my binoculars snapped “no pictures!”. I laughed realizing they may have thought me a spy. At the next level I stopped to check out the practice through my binoculars and a lady guard loudly yelled at me to move on, no stopping along the rail.
On the next level when I paused to look I noticed a security man making his way up towards us and we moved on. As we ascended higher I watched him tell another family who were looking over at the practice to move on. F&%king Patriots, assume everyone is spying on them because that is what they do. Its a f%$king game I thought but then again it’s not just a game; it’s money. Me and that family, we’re fans ;excited to maybe glimpse Mac Jones or just watch a bit of the workout and hounded away because losing means losing money; and it that means being dicks to the fans then so be it.
At the top the cops were watching so we watched a bit with them until the man made his way to the top and told us, but not the cops, to move along, We were happy to comply. It was a beautiful afternoon, sunny but not too hot with big white cotton ball clouds floating in the blue sky. All around us beyond the practice facilities were treetops with the occasional steeple and water tower breaking above the canopy. I scanned the landscape through my binoculars and aways off above the treelined horizon I spied the skyscrapers of Boston. The Pru along and some of the more recent structures as well as a full on side view of the John Hancock Building. I passed the binoculars to Jakobi so she could take a look. It’s been 10 years since my Mom moved out of Boston. She lived right behind the Hancock Building and Ambiana and Jakobi called it Gamma’s Building as she did now seeing it through the binoculars.
Below us parked in a tight compact rectangle were the semi-trailers and luxury coaches that move this show from place to place. There were at least 50 semis and probably half as many luxury coaches. This is the 21st century equivalent of the circus coming to town but instead of a train it is a convoy. The coaches were on the outside where the band, dancers, back up singers and entourage would board at the end of the show tonight and sleep on their way to D.C. For the weekend shows there. Meanwhile the roadies and tech crew would load the semis and follow behind. I wonder how long it takes them to break down the stage and load up? Dawn tomorrow or Noon or maybe later? Does a time-lapse of the process exist?
After walking the highest tier. as far as we could on the South side where we were not sitting in order to walk the entire stadium we doubled back to the North side and found our seats in section 308 19 rows up. This time we were in a section that could see the stage which was spread out below us. A massive video screen with a circular arch inset in the middle of the stage which was shaped like a slice of orange. On either ends of the stage were VIP Sections, through my binocs I could see a sign which read “PURE/HONEY ONSTAGE RISERS Descending from the front of the stage in the middle were six broad shallow steps leading down to a Runway which pierced an encircling Circle Stage ending in the Circle’s center where it blossomed out into a small circular stage.
Inside the Circle was the CLUB RENNAISANCE with three bars, lots of Beyhive People and a DJ spinning the music that was blasting through -out the stadium. Only a few people were dancing down there while up in our our section a woman dressed all in silver lamee stopped on her descent down the aisle and Vouged for a spell while a young lady seated in front of us gleefully recorded it all on her phone. Ms. Silver Lamee made her way down to the small landing overlooking the stadium, danced some more and when she finally moved on she was accompanied by claps and cheers.
All over the stadium there were lots of cowboy hats of every color; some fringed, some lit up, some glittered but the most popular by far was the disco-ball hat like the one Beyonce is wearing on the Stadium Screen. There is also lots of glitter and lots of people of all colors wearing the same combo: Cowboy hat, tight top, fringed jean shorts and cowboy boots dipped in glitter. People like Jakobi and me that are not glammed up are definitely in the minority.
Jakobi’s on her phone and I’m taking it all in through my binoculars as the spinning Earth carries us into Golden Hour. The light is rich, an orangish pink and lots of pictures are being taken all around us. Out in the West the clouds float lazily and through my binoculars I can see hills and a mountain or two off towards Worcester (MA). I focus back in on the stadium and find 2 more VIP areas. I riser of dark padded seats in the middle of the floor shaded towards the rear with a great front on view of the stage. And one at the base of one of the two speaker towers set near the back of the stadium floor. This one is raised high and draped in black and it’s some fancy-champagne-maybe-owned-by-BeyVIP area with buckets of golden lamee covered bottles of champagne covering the bar top.. That’s four VIP areas so far. Make no mistake this too is about the money.
Eight PM passes and the DJ in CLUB RENNAISANCE stops playing and I watch as two roadies completely takes apart the electronics, the table it was set upon and the riser holding it all in ten minutes. I bet they break this whole thing down in 12 hours. On stage men in Crew vests were walking the stage spotlit checking the lights, checking the smoke. Opening up tracks for remote camera systems. Through my binoculars I found the stadium sky cam and it is decked out in glitter. There is also a circular ring with a cross bisecting it and four circular something or other attached. I hand the binoculars to Jakobi so she can check out the wires holding them up to see if she could find where they attached. She says the stage.
Whens it going to begin she asks. After the sunsets I surmise. This is a production that flourishes in the dark. I mused on the spectacle that shows have become. When I saw the WHO at the Pontiac Silver Dome in 1982 there was maybe a drum riser but mostly it was four guys on stage and a big screen with a one-camera shots of Roger Daltrey and Pete Townsend and maybe the bass player and that was it. But then I recall when I saw KISS at the same arena in 1979 and it was a big fucking spectacle; fire blood, fireworks fired from Ace Frehely’s guitar and bass player Gene Simmons lifted to the top of the lighting assembly during “God of Thunder” It’s always been a spectacle. Back to my binocs and I find yet another VIP area; the BEYHIVE, two of them in fact one on either side of the Runway and up against the stage front.
Suddenly the test pattern that had been on the screen is replaced by a bright blue sky and the stadium fills with cheers. An opening appears stage front and center and Beyonce’s voice is heard saying “Hello Boston” as she rises up to stage level. The crowd goes apeshit. The screen within the recessed circle-arch is pulled aside and from our angle can be seen the front left corner of a glitter-coated riser with a glittered covered bass player and trumpeter standing atop it. Beyonce, draped in a red dress wearing a flat hat like a halo and cat eye sunglasses, can barely be heard above the roar of the crowd as she sings alone in the center of the massive stage.
The first four songs are all slow ballads showing off her vocal range and skills. She sings the 2nd song atop a silver piano on stage left. In between songs she reads aloud some of the signs being held aloft in the BEHYIVE. Beyonce the balladeer and songstress is opening for Beyonce the spectacle who appears after the fourth song. The interlude is accomplished with a futuristic video segment on the massive screen that backdrops the entire stage and when Bey returns she too is now in glitter and is accompanied by her dancers and we are off on a 2 + hour stadium wide dance party.
Video segment facilitate costume changes as do dance and band interludes. I keep hoping the band riser which is hidden from our view tucked back in the circle will move forward but it never does. The guitar player, shirtless in glitter slacks comes out of the circle for a few solos and for the last hour the horn section take up position at the front stage right while the four back up singers take up the stage left front. The rest of the band are featured on the video screen during one of the interludes as is a dance off late in the show in the small circle at the end of the runway where the dancers egg each other on and cheer as they shake their butts and contort their bodies to the beat.
There are two male dancers who dance their way around the circle bringing down the house with their slick moves. They are not part of the more numerous Bey Dance Troupe but they reappear during songs and interludes in new costumes busting our new moves. There are Camera men everywhere on stage and at one point a dancer trains a small hand held camera at his fellow dancers and Beyonce as they are rocking out and the footage appears on the big screen. The show is a movie, a music video, a stage show, a musical, a dance performance and a concert all rolled into one.
My favorite part is when Beyonce’s 11 year old daughter, Blue Ivy, wearing the same outfit as her mother, rose up on a riser from beneath the stage and, move for move, matched Beyonce’s choreography. Then with a fist bump to her mother she took the point leading the dancers down the Runway as her mother followed behind astride a silver lamee futuristic looking vehicle singing “Black Parade” from The Lion King. Blue Ivy has the moves, she was killing it and the stadium ate it up.
When the song ended Blue Ivy stood in the small circle taking in all the love and giving it back, hands to her heart making a heart with her hands. She then busted out a pose worthy of her mom and Beyonce watching from above broke from her diva persona and glowing with a parental pride became for amoment just like the rest of us; full of love and pride for her kid.
The show was broken into Six Parts, a journey through old school house and dance music translated to the 21st Century Now. There were fireworks and flashing lights. At one point Beyonce sang from inside a giant pillowed padded seashell. There were even four robotic devices that held and manipulated various props in their robot arms during several songs. You could say they were almost dancing. A giant disco ball was brought out and attached to the small circle on wires I had spied before the show and it traveled the length of the Runway and back but oddly a spot light was never trained upon it to fill the stadium with its glittering light.
Aside from the interludes the video screen showed mostly Beyonce, the dancers and the band keeping the focus on the musical and dance performance. The last segment deviated from this as Beyonce intoned “AMERICA HAS A PROBLEM” and rose from beneath the stage in front of a news anchor desk (WNFT???) while the massive screen behind her filled with images from real and imagined TV NEWS programs. PURE/HONEY came next and then the finale SUMMER RENNAIANCE as Beyonce straddled a Crystal Horse that had taken the place of the Disco Ball and sang as she and the horde were carried though the air above the Runway setting down on the small circle where she lifted off of the Crystal Horse soaring into the air and flying backwards to the stage as a massive storm of silver glitter rained down all around her. Upon reaching the stage and the end of the song she thanked the crowd for going on this journey with her and then walked into the circle and was gone.
The lights came on immediately, people had started to descend towards the stairs when Bey got on her horse knowing it was the end of the show and now everyone started moving toward the aisle. Not wanting to get stuck on a staircase like after Taylor Swift I herded Jakobi toward the ramp where we kept to the outside and made our way down 2 levels before the crowd stalled as it was joined by the crowd from the lower concourse. Remembering our way in and knowing the ramp we were descending would spit us out with a long walk around the parking lots and stores of Patriot Place I herded Jakobi back out to the concourse where the crowd was thin and headed for the spot we had entered the stadium six hours before. There was no crowd and soon we were out of the stadium and heading for the RT 1 crossing where we again encountered the crowd.
After crossing the busy road Jakobi headed onto the grass beside the walkway which no one was walking upon and began running towards the parking lot. No VIP parking pass this time to ease our way away from the stadium and Jakobi had been in the parking lot for 2 hours after Ed Sheeren so I was ready for a long wait but Jakobi seemed eager to get to the truck so I fell in behind her. We made it to the truck fast, jumped in, started her up and pulled into the lane and got in behind a line of cars. Half an hour later we had not only not moved but I did not see any movement in the portions of the parking lot I could see so I got up on the roof of the truck and scanned 360⁰ and saw some movement behind us to the right so I got back in behind the wheel and pulled us out of line and over across the lot to join a wedge of cars that were inching toward an exit. No one was giving an inch unless they had too but it we were moving and half an hour later we pulled out onto Rt 1 and began to move continuously in heavy traffic for a few miles till we turned North on Rt 112 and a stop sign later we were free of all traffic and on our way to Millis 10 miles away.
