Rihanna is the biggest pop star on the planet. If that wasn’t apparent already, given the constant media attention and radio play she gets, last night’s show at Madison Square Garden cemented that. Her Last Girl On Earth tour, co-starring pop diva Ke$ha, stopped by New York’s most iconic venue and tore the roof off.
The show was an absolute spectacle. From the opening performance of ‘Russian Roulette,’ which ended with a video projection of an exploding heart, to ‘Te Amo’, during which Rihanna danced with two female dancers hanging trapeze-style from giant machine guns, the stage production and audiovisual was definitely on point. The theme of the tour was very millitaristic, with lots of guns, skull & bones, explosions, etc. The video projects that played in the background throughout the show were very inspired, constantly repeating ‘this is a dream’ and using imagery that is sure to give Illuminati conspiracy theorists tons of new talking points. The costumes were great as well, lots of S&M and military-inspired numbers.It was an event, obviously taking cues from Lady GaGa‘s state of the art Monster Ball tour.
Rihanna has a pretty deep repertoire of hits, and she went through pretty much all of them (though she did leave out early favorites like ‘If It’s Loving That You Want,’ and album cuts like ‘Cold Case Love’ and ‘Sell Me Candy’). Standouts were definitely ‘Rude Boy,’ ‘Rehab,’ which she performed in a rotating shrink’s chair, ‘Don’t Stop the Music,’ which she perfomed in a glow-in-the-dark cube.
NEXT PAGE: MORE ON THE LAST GIRL ON EARTH TOUR.
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As if her own hits weren’t enough, RiRi treated us to an acoutic cover of B.O.B‘s ‘Airplanes,’ a piano-led version of the number one single in the country, Eminem‘s ‘Love The Way You Lie,’ and a really cool rendition of 80s icon Sheila E.‘s ‘The Glamorous Life’ (complete with a drum solo by Rihanna herself!).
Since her pals Jay-Z and Kanye West were both in town, many were expecting them to show up. That didn’t happen, but it was probably for the best – with this show Rihanna showed that she can more than hold her own. She may bring the outlandishness of a Lady GaGa, or the choreography of a Britney Spears, but Rihanna does what she does very well. She’s a rockstar.
NEXT PAGE: MORE PICS FROM THE CONCERT!
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