Beyoncé lights up Coachella once again with round two of #Beychella
A much more at-ease Beyoncé graced the Coachella stage on Saturday night for her second festival performance in as many weekends.
Her two-hour set featured few surprises, repeating the previous week's guest moments for Jay-Z, Solange, and a Destiny's Child reunion. The only new addition -- other than a color palette change that highlighted silver and hot pink -- was J Balvin, who stepped out on stage for "Mi Gente."
But many attendees took note of the looser vibe. Surely some of that has to do with the relief of Saturday's set being round two of a production that was said to be six months in the making -- and which was executed perfectly during its first live runthrough.
Rolling Stone's write-up of the second weekend set does a great job of getting at the heart of what separates the two performances:
In fact, the greatest change between the two shows seemed to be Beyoncé herself. Last week, a small but vocal contingent disparaged the show with the kind of complaint that seems harmless on the surface, but turns darker when cracked open: "The show is too perfect." It's an insult that would only be lobbed at a woman, and especially at Beyoncé's headlining set – as a few writers noted in their pieces last week, she was "too perfect" because she had to be too perfect. Beyoncé's performances have seemed staged down to the eye roll before, but last night, she seemed loose, a little giddy. Maybe it was knowing the first show had been received so well, or maybe she was just relieved to have such a high-pressure show off the docket. Whatever it was, she was more charming and off-the-cuff than I can ever remember seeing her.
There was even a memorable flub when Beyoncé went in to hug Solange, only for both of them to tumble to the stage floor together. Rather than veering off into train wreck territory, both sisters rose and laughed off the moment as one of those organic occurrences that imbue a sense of humanity into high-energy, high-stress productions like this. A "happy accident," if you will.
It's just too bad Coachella didn't stream video of the second weekend set like it did the first one. But as usual, social media came to the rescue with photos, videos, and fan takes straight from California.
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Topics Music
Adam Rosenberg is a Senior Games Reporter for Mashable, where he plays all the games. Every single one. From AAA blockbusters to indie darlings to mobile favorites and browser-based oddities, he consumes as much as he can, whenever he can.Adam brings more than a decade of experience working in the space to the Mashable Games team. He previously headed up all games coverage at Digital Trends, and prior to that was a long-time, full-time freelancer, writing for a diverse lineup of outlets that includes Rolling Stone, MTV, G4, Joystiq, IGN, Official Xbox Magazine, EGM, 1UP, UGO and others.Born and raised in the beautiful suburbs of New York, Adam has spent his life in and around the city. He's a New York University graduate with a double major in Journalism and Cinema Studios. He's also a certified audio engineer. Currently, Adam resides in Crown Heights with his dog and his partner's two cats. He's a lover of fine food, adorable animals, video games, all things geeky and shiny gadgets.
