The stage for Rihanna’s Anti World Tour is a minamalist’s dream: Everything’s white and shaped in cubes or rectangles. Wrapped risers neatly hug the border, and white drapes smooth the edges to hide one side of the arena’s seats. A massive panel hanging overhead pulls double-duty as lights and screen, depending on the moment.
But that, for all its pristine glory, is not where the Barbadian pop star first appears.
As the lights faded and a cacophony of screams rose to the rafters from Rihanna’s fiercely dressed audience at the Smoothie King Center in New Orleans on Tuesday (May 17), heads and cell phones scanned the crowd in hopes of spotting the star.
She didn’t appear at once, but rather stepped out of some hidden space at the back of the arena to walk toward a stage atop the sound booth. It, too, was bathed in taut white draping and held just a single microphone stand. Rihanna herself strolled to it underneath the hood of a white robe, climbing the stairs one-by-one as a synth-y vibe turned into heart-rending piano for “Stay,” a pleading ballad from her 2012 album, “Unapologetic.”
Rihanna would not be slamming into high gear. Instead, she’d slide into it. This was understated. Calm, even. The impression was greater still.
Setting the tone for the two-hour-long set to follow, Rihanna was in her element, reveling in her work, her frankly saucy-but-fun dance moves and, above all, her artistic freedom. Throughout the night, that freedom would manifest in sometimes eyebrow-raising ways, with a show featuring a giant wall of foam sliding down a plastic sheet in gelatinous tendrils, massive inflatable slugs covered in something like Saran wrap and a pair of dancers popping in shining red demon bodysuits.
But, she’d also delight in it, smiling with a knowing, smoldering look like a cat toying with its prey, and always keeping her knees bent as she rocked and swayed with the sound of her live backing band.
Rihanna’s eighth studio album from which the tour gets its name, harkened a shift for the artist herself. She started work on “Anti” in 2014, but then left Def Jam Records, which had been her home for her first seven albums. Instead, she joined Jay Z’s Roc Nation, and Rihanna found herself with more control and experimenting with new and old vibes. The final result was an album, released in January, that moves her sound away from dance clubs and closer to Caribbean dance halls, but with a mix of carefully layered dark synth and R&B layered in between.
Still, with a massive pop background, Rihanna paid homage while in New Orleans to nearly all of her previous hits with a set that tucked in more than two dozen tracks. She deftly handled those hits for which she was a featured artist, like Eminem’s “Love the Way You Lie,” which appeared quickly in the night and as an almost slow jam without the rapper as anchor.
From the sound booth stage, Rihanna, wearing a white bodysuit and thigh-high boots, slid onto a lucite beam that hung from the ceiling. Levitating above the center of the arena, Rihanna stomped and waggled her rear through “Sex With Me” and “Woo,” all the while her efforts leaving the beam to sway slightly.
She soon landed on her stage, where she’d tuck into “Birthday Cake,” “B— Better Have My Money” and “Pour it Up” while surrounded by a rotation of back-up dancers dressed in monotone combat boots, bubblegum pink wigs and hoodies.
Until she disappeared for a quick costume change, Rihanna relied heavily on her own back-up track, but thankfully did away with that by the time she jumped into more of her (and other’s) older hits: “Live Your Life,” “Umbrella,” “Run This Town,” “All of the Lights” and “Consideration.”
“New Orleans! What … is up tonight? You know we couldn’t wait to come here right? I know this is supposed to be one of the earlier shows, and it ended up a little later,” Rihanna noted, mentioning the date change from March to May. The local stop — and seven others — were rescheduled after the singer suffered bronchitis in February. “Thank y’all so much for coming out. This night would not be the same all by (myself). …
“Welcome to the Anti World Tour,” she continued. “Show of hands, who got the ‘Anti’ album? How many of y’all stole it off the Internet? I’mma let you stay as long as you know the words to this next joint.”
With that, she brought out “Desperado” as a projector turned the white drapes of the set into walls of oozing liquid gold, and Rihanna writhed from top to bottom as her long, straight hair whipped around the mic she held tightly to her lips. In “Work,” she gave the audience a similar vantage point to Drake during that song’s music video.
Although previous hits — like “Rude Boy,” “Diamonds” and “We Found Love” — had their place in a crowd filled with Rihanna fans, the singer herself was at her best with tracks from “Anti,” whether it was the spiraling synth and intense desire of “Needed Me,” the coy slips of a jacket leaving her shoulders during “Brand New Person” or the R&B sound of “Love on the Brain.” It was with those tracks when she seemed to find a home, knowing full well that restraining her powerful voice could have more meaning than letting it rip.
“Y’all ain’t going home yet,” she laughed after playing out the incredulousness of “FourFiveSeconds.” “Y’all stuck with me.”
Note on photo use: Photographers were not allowed access to shoot Rihanna’s 2016 tour stop in New Orleans.
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