The crowd was pulsing.  It was packed.  I could have picked my feet up off the concrete floor and not fallen down.  We were all one sweaty mass.  One person swayed, we all swayed.  We were one giant multi-faced being.  Wide eyed.  Nine Inch Nails blared through the speakers.  “It comes down to this. . .”  We all sang in unison.

There was a white curtain from the ceiling to the floor of the stage–concealing everything behind.

The lights suddenly went out.  The music became eery.  Like a very dark choir. It was a minor key.  Everyone pushed a little closer to the stage.  We were all angry, but in a good way.  Angry in a way that we were about to experience a release. . .and we were only subdued by the fact that we knew a release was forthcoming.

Blinding light from behind the stage illuminated the whole room.  We all squinted.  There was a sole shadowed figure in the center of the stage.  Arms raised.  Fists clinched.  The bass shook the room.  Quarter notes at half time started shaking everything that wasn’t nailed down.

“He is the angel with the scabbed wings/Hard-drug face, want to power his nose/he will deflower the freshest crop/dry up all the wombs with his rock and roll sores/with his rock and roll sores.”

The curtain is immediately sucked up into the ceiling, a wall of sound pushed us all back, it was so loud it was barely tolerable, and Marilyn Manson didn’t stop for the next 90 minutes.  That was an entrance.  That made the hair on the back of my neck stand up.  It’s important to note here that I’m not particularly a Manson fan.  I don’t care for the lyrics generally, and I’m not a fan of, “weird for the sake of weird.” I am a fan of live music, and I have a rule that I’ll see anyone once.

I’ve seen thousands of shows.  Stadium and arena shows to me always carry an air of anticipation to see how the, “artist” comes out.  How do they make their grand entrance?  I’ve seen drums fall from the rafters  Lead singers appear in mist.  Bands make their way to the stage from in the crowd.  Singers lowered in. . .  I’ve seen so many exciting entrances to a show.

Then there was tonight.  A 200 foot tall double-sided screen was fixed to a rotating base in the middle of the stage.  The lights went out, the screen flickered and rotated.  Occasional images of Beyoncé flashed and filled the screen.  The crowd screamed every time they saw her face.  Smoke filled the stage as the screen was 90 degrees from its starting point (after it had made several full rotations).  Beyoncé and her dancers just walked in.  In formation.  To, “Formation.”

It felt lackluster to me.  The bass was crushing, but it was canned.  There was no live instrumentation.  It was tracked.  I wondered if the vocals were tracked too.  The crowd sang more of the first song than she did.  The crowd seemed to be into it, and I appreciated that, but I wasn’t.  I tried.  I tried really hard.

I made it an hour.  The same dance moves repeated in different costumes.  There was a lot of crotch and butt on the screen.  The fans were blowing hair all over the place.  The screen rotated some more.  Beyoncé sang some more.  It just never got, “good” to me.

I had a hard time with the no musicians thing.  There was a drummer and a guitar player who played brief, solo interludes while Beyoncé changed costumes, but the show itself was taped.

Having just released, “Lemonade” I felt like this was an extension of that, “experience.”  She released a, “visual album” and this seemed to repeat many of the #feels from that.  That was my problem though, I could have stayed at home and seen this.

I made it an hour.  I looked at my companion and was asked, “you good?  I’ve been ready for about half an hour.”  12 of us left at the same time.  On the way out I heard someone say, “this is my third show of hers and by far the worst.”  I was comforted in the fact that I was not alone in thinking it was lacking.

I get it.  She’s not my bag.  She isn’t my go-to artist, and aside from my moments of release alone in the car with no one watching while I scream, “Irreplaceable” or, “Survivor” I rarely listen to her.  (Omit this–never admit this–not even to your friends).  I also know that she does it for some people.  I hope this was enjoyed by those that do.  Sincerely.  I know one couple who have really been looking forward to tonight and I hope it was the best show they’ve seen this year.

For me though, this show now holds the spot of the worst show I’ve ever seen.  Congratulations, Rufus Wainwright…you’ve been dethroned.