Look, there’s really no other way to say it: Beyoncé’s headlining performance Saturday night at the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival was one of the most impressive things I’ve seen in 20 years of professional show-going.
The scale, the reach, the detail — and the feeling — simply put it on a level higher than those on which most other artists operate.
And Beyoncé knew it.
“I was supposed to perform at Coachella before,” she said with a grin near the end of show, referring to the 2017 edition of the annual mega-festival at Indio’s Empire Polo Club. “But I ended up pregnant.” That allowed her the time, continued the mother of 10-month-old twins, “to dream” up something big “with two souls in my belly.”
Did she really spend a year planning Saturday’s concert?
Probably not.
But then again…
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Beyoncé closes the night with an electric performance.
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Beyoncé brings a big band sound onstage with her.
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Fans take in Beyoncé’s performance at Coachella.
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Beyoncé closes out Day 2 at Coachella.
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Beyoncé on the bleachers.
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Beyoncé pulls out all the stops for a grand finale at Coachella.
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Back with a vengeance, a barefoot David Byrne performs.
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Byrne provides a bit of musical theater as he shares the stage with a model brain.
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Rapper Tyler, the Creator performs.
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Aman Mbande of Nairobi, Kenya, takes in the scene.
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Festival-goers mill around the Etherea structures as the sun sets on Day 2 of the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival.
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British singer Jorga Smith performs.
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Jorga Smith onstage.
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The sun sets on Day 2 in Indio.
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Guitarist Danielle Haim performs with her sisters in the band Haim.
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Bassist Este Haim performs with her sisters.
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The band Haim performs.
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Danish singer, songwriter and electropop producer Mo performs.
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Danish singer, songwriter and electropop producer Mo.
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People are cast in silhouette as they walk in the Antarctic visual experience.
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People make their way between performance stages, art installations and food vendors as the sun sets behind the Santa Rosa Mountains.
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Angel Olsen onstage April 14 at the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival in Indio.
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Angel Olsen’s keyboardist and backing vocalist (NAME N/A) shakes a tambourine against a backdrop featuring Angel’s cat on stage at the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival on April 14.
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First Aid Kit’s Johnna Soderberg onstage at the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival on April 14.
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First Aid Kit’s Johnna Soderberg on stage at the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival on April 14.
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L.A. resident Danielle Thomas, 30, wears flowers in her hair on the way to a performance by Nigerian singer/songwriter Wizkid at the Coachella Music and Arts Festival on April 14.
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Vocalist/violinist Sudan Archives performs African-inspired music during the Coachella Music and Arts Festival in Indio on April 14.
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Vocalist/violinist Sudan Archives performs African-inspired music during the Coachella Music and Arts Festival on April 14.
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Vocalist/violinist Sudan Archives performs African-inspired music during the Coachella Music and Arts Festival in Indio on April 14.
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Singer Folami performs with Nile Rodgers, background, during the Coachella Music and Arts Festival in Indio on, April 14.
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Nile Rodgers, left, and bassist Jerry Barnes perform with CHIC during the Coachella Music and Arts Festival in Indio on April 14.
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Chloe Bailey, left, and Halle Bailey of Chloe x Halle perform during Day 2 of the Coachella Valley Arts and Music Festival at the Empire Polo Grounds on April 14 in Indio.
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Musician Chloe Bailey of Chloe x Halle performs during Day 2 of the Coachella Valley Arts and Music Festival on April 14.
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Halle and Chloe Bailey of Chloe x Halle perform during Day 2 of the Coachella Valley Arts and Music Festival on April 14.
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Declan McKenna and band perform during Day 2 of the Coachella Valley Arts and Music Festival on April 14.
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Declan McKenna performs at the Mojave stage during Day 2 of the Coachella Valley Arts and Music Festival on April 14.
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Declan McKenna performs at the Mojave stage during Day 2 of the Coachella Valley Arts and Music Festival at the Empire Polo Grounds on April 14 in Indio, Calif.
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Katie Alice Greer, of the musical group, The Priests, performs with the band, at the Sonora tent during Day 2 of the Coachella Valley Arts and Music Festival on April 14 in Indio.
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Katie Alice Greer of the Priests performs at the Sonora tent during Day 2 of the Coachella Valley Arts and Music Festival at the Empire Polo Grounds on April 14 in Indio.
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Katie Alice Greer of the Priests performs with the band during Day 2 of the Coachella Valley Arts and Music Festival on April 14.
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Daniele Daniele of the Priests performs during Day 2 of the Coachella Valley Arts and Music Festival on April 14, 2018 in Indio.
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Halle Bailey of Chloe x Halle performs during Day 2 of the Coachella Valley Arts and Music Festival at the Empire Polo Grounds on April 14.
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Daniele Daniele of the Priests performs with the band, at the Sonora tent during Day 2 of the Coachella Valley Arts and Music Festival at the Empire Polo Grounds on April 14 in Indio, Calif.
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GL Jaguar, Katie Alice Greer and Daniele Daniele of the Priests perform April 14 at Coachella.
(Kent Nishimura / Los Angeles Times) More: Coachella is now measured in B.C. and A.C. (Before Mrs. Carter, and After) »
Described in a booming introductory voiceover as “Beyoncé Homecoming 2018,” the gig served as a warm and vivid tribute to America’s historically black colleges and universities, a concept she was clearly tying to her role — as she happily pointed out onstage — as the first black woman to headline Coachella. (“Ain’t that ’bout a bitch,” she added in a pitch-perfect aside.)
She was accompanied by approximately 100 dancers and musicians, including brass and string players, a drum line and a baton twirler; at several points, Beyoncé disappeared to change costumes and was replaced in the spotlight by a lively step squad.
The thoroughness of the presentation, with skits and long dance routines and radical rearrangements of some of Beyoncé’s best-known songs, was staggering — miles beyond what even the most ambitious of Coachella’s other performers are bringing to the desert.
“Freedom,” riding a heavy groove played on sousaphones, suddenly morphed into a rendition of “Lift Every Voice and Sing,” often called the black national anthem. “Sorry” sprouted a hilarious and salty call-and-response chant that can’t be printed here. “Drunk in Love,” which Beyoncé sang from atop a rotating cherry picker, sounded as woozily festive as New Orleans funeral music.
Beychella report: What Beyoncé fans are saying about her Coachella performance »
One way you could tell how much effort Beyoncé and her team had put into the show was from the precisely composed images being fed to the enormous screens flanking the stage (and to YouTube, which livestreamed the performance).
Typically that type of camera work is pretty straightforward. But here it was designed like a movie, bringing the viewer’s attention to granular elements — like one drummer’s facial expression as she busted out military-grade paradiddles — that you couldn’t see from even the closest position on the polo grounds.
Still, for all the careful integration of the action onstage, Beyoncé was undeniably the focus as she delivered songs from throughout her catalog: early hits such as a triumphant “Crazy in Love” and a creamy “Me, Myself and I”; mid-period material like an impassioned “I Care” and a deliriously funky “Get Me Bodied” (for which she brought out her sister, Solange, to dance with her); and stuff from 2016’s “Lemonade,” including “Formation” and “Don’t Hurt Yourself,” which the brass players gave the vibe of a James Bond theme.
Solange wasn’t Beyoncé’s only guest. The singer’s husband, Jay-Z, showed up to do his verse from “Déjà Vu.”
Check out our full live blog from Coachella 2018 »
And as rumored beforehand, Beyoncé staged a brief reunion of Destiny’s Child to squeals of excitement from the audience; the influential girl group remade its classic “Say My Name” as a lustrous soul jam that made you long to hear what kind of new music Beyoncé, Kelly Rowland and Michelle Williams might make together now as women in their mid-to-late 30s.
Again, Beyoncé was obviously the sun in these collaborative moments; you never forgot that it was her gravitational force that had brought these other stars into orbit.
Yet the presence of family reinforced the valuable sense of community she was getting at with the show’s clever and heartfelt HBCU vibe.
Her hard work wasn’t for her alone, she seemed to be saying.
It was something to be shared.
To read this article in Spanish, click here
MORE ON BEYONCE:
Beyoncé hired alumni from historically black colleges to help her get in ‘Formation’
Beychella report: What Beyoncé fans are saying about her Coachella performance
Beyoncé wears custom Balmain looks for her Coachella thriller
Check out Beyoncé’s full Coachella set list
mikael.wood@latimes.com
Twitter: @mikaelwood
