I Am... Tour (also referred to as the I Am... World Tour) was the fourth concert tour by American singer-songwriter Beyoncé, in support of her third studio album, I Am... Sasha Fierce (2008), consisting of 110 concerts across six continents. Two months of preparations for the tour began eight months prior to its commencement, with daily twelve-hour rehearsals. The tour was announced in October 2008, and began in March 2009 with five preliminary ’rehearsal’ shows in North America. Beyoncé has described the I Am... World Tour as her best and most theatrical of all of her tours.
The set list for the tour included songs from Beyoncé's previous three studio albums, several covers of songs by other artists, as well as a Destiny's Child medley. The central theme of the tour was to showcase the differences between Beyoncé's dual ‘personas’—her real, ‘Beyoncé's self compared to her confident, sexier stage-persona, ‘Sasha Fierce’—a theme which was also explored on her then-album, the dual record I Am... Sasha Fierce. The show featured two stages – the primary performance stage and a smaller B-stage, which Beyoncé was transferred to during the middle of the show. She was backed by a ten-member, all-female band, The Sugar Mamas (also known as Suga Mama), female background dancers, and a large LED video screen. Thierry Mugler collaborated with Beyoncé on the costumes and was given a creative-advisor role, further collaborating on choreography, lighting and production. Chris March made the costumes usable and wearable for the stage and helped in their construction. For the ballad performances, Beyoncé wore longer, glamorous dresses; for the performances of up-tempo songs, more make-up was applied and more revealing outfits were worn. The fashion, as well as Beyoncé's looks and overall physique, received notable praise from critics and fans. The show was directed and choreographed by Frank Gatson Jr.
I Am... received critical acclaim from music journalists and fans alike, with many praising Beyoncé's performance skills and calling her the “best” current female performer. A concert in Malaysia, however, was cancelled by Beyoncé herself, after several Muslim groups tried to ban it on the grounds of revealing costumes—despite it being a family-friendly show, and Beyoncé having originally agreed to tone-down her looks, as per the country's standards. Nevertheless, the entire tour was commercially successful, grossing $86.0 million from the first 93 shows in total. Separate and one-off performances of several songs were broadcast on different channels; two concerts were released as live albums, and the live performance at the I Am... Yours revue was released as a CD/DVD recording (2009). Footage of the tour was released on a similarly titled live album (2010).
Background
In 2006, during an interview with MTV News, Beyoncé introduced an aggressive alter ego, Sasha Fierce, which also served as her stage persona. She added that the persona is a complete opposite of her when not performing by characterizing her as "aggressive... strong... fearless." Beyoncé'ss third album I Am... Sasha Fierce introduced Sasha Fierce as her alter ego. she revealed that Sasha was born during the making of her single "Crazy in Love" (2003). The plans for a 2009 tour in support of the album were announced in October 2008 by Billboard magazine. The tour dates for the European leg were announced in December 2008. During an interview with Entertainment Weekly, Beyoncé confirmed that she would be backed by the all-female band which had also accompanied her for her previous The Beyoncé Experience tour (2007). Rehearsals for the tour lasted eight months during which the set list for the shows was also constructed. Beyoncé further revealed that the twelve-hour rehearsals for the tour included dancing the choreography in heels for two months before it commenced. During an interview, Beyoncé emphasized how she needed to prepare to channel her alter ego for the performances. According to Beyoncé, the shows were supposed to be a mixture of several of her musical preferences, including jazz, hip-hop, ballet and fashion.
The tour kicked off in late-March 2009 with five rehearsal shows in North America. It officially commenced in late April 2009, at Arena Zagreb in Croatia later visiting six continents, namely the Americas, Europe, Asia, Africa, and Australia. The six-week North American leg of the I Am... tour kicked off on June 21 with a show at Madison Square Garden in New York and finished with a four-night residency at Encore in the Wynn Las Vegas from July 30, 2009 to August 2, 2009. The tour finished with a concert at Queen's Park Savannah in Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago, with 103 shows in total. Beyoncé and her organization, The Survivor Foundation, became the spokesperson for General Mills' Hamburger Helper campaign entitled, "Show Your Helping Hand". The campaign's mission was to provide more than 3.5 million meals to local food banks in North America. Beyoncé encouraged spectators to bring non-perishable foods to her North American concerts to be donated to the campaign. According to the campaign's official website, nearly three millions meals and over $50,000 have been donated.
Development
Beyoncé revealed that the hardest aspect of coming up with the tour's set list was managing to fit her decade-long song catalogue in a two-hour show. According to her, the tour was supposed to be more emotional than The Beyoncé Experience in order to reflect the "real[,] raw and more sensitive" nature of the I Am... portion of the double album. Beyoncé expressed frustration that snippets of the show appeared online after the first shows on the opening leg, thus "ruining" the surprise factor of the concert experience; however she also appreciated the fact that it can act as a "little sneak peek" for fans to decide if they indeed want to attend. French designer Thierry Mugler served as the creative advisor while also being responsible for Beyoncé'ss wardrobe. He contributed in the design of lighting, choreography, production and directed three sequences for the concert. According to his creative vision, the shows were intended to represent mise-en-scène by incorporating technical aspects with fashion in order to capture the emotions behind the songs. He added, "There will be a lot of dramatization and metamorphosis on stage. Some very strong effects have been inspired directly by Beyoncé, and only she could make [them] happen on stage."
Onstage, Beyoncé was backed by her ten-piece all-female band, Suga Mama, which included two drummers, two keyboardists, a percussionist, a horn section, three backup vocalists called the Mamas, and a lead guitarist. The show featured two stages, namely a simple main stage with a pop-up set of stairs, an LED background screen, and glass risers for Suga Mama and The Mamas as well as a smaller B-stage in the midst of the audience for the later portions of the show. During the concerts, Beyoncé went through six costume changes; during the breaks, The Mamas harmonized. The set list included songs from all of Beyoncé'ss three studio albums that had been published, a Destiny's Child medley and several covers of other artists. Several critics noted that the songs on the set list were divided into ballads and more up-tempo songs to coincide with the central theme of I Am... Sasha Fierce – the dual personality of Beyoncé. Beyoncé'ss costumes were changed in order to coincide with the songs' nature; during performances of ballads, she wore longer white dresses while for the uptempo songs, she had more revealing outfits and make-up.
Fashion
Thierry Mugler served as the main costume designer for the tour. Beyoncé was acquainted to and enraptured by his work at the Metropolitan Museum of Art Costume Institute Gala, titled "Superheroes, Fashion and Fantasy" (2008) where she saw several of his haute couture pieces that were on display. Beyoncé discussed the possibility of using the costumes with Tina Knowles. She met with Mugler in Paris in September of the same year and started exchanging ideas for costume designs and the following month he was contracted as the designer for the tour. While designing, the main concept Mugler wanted to illustrate was the duality between "being a woman and a warrior" through his own creative perception; the words "Feminine. Free. Warrior. Fierce" were the overarching inspiration. He felt, "Sasha Fierce is another aspect of Beyoncé'ss personality, she is Fierce on stage and Beyoncé in real life... Beyoncé is a very sophisticated 'stage animal', which means that she is truly instinctive. Beyoncé expresses herself through the two aspects of her personality." Furthermore, the elaborate costumes were related to the meanings of the songs performed.
A seventy one piece wardrobe was designed for Beyoncé and her dancers and band. For the shows, Beyoncé adopted ten different looks. American fashion designer Chris March also worked with Mugler ensuring the costumes were suitable for stage purposes. On July 23, 2009, March filed a lawsuit against Mugler for allegedly not paying him for the work he did on the wardrobe. Metal pieces, fishnets, gloves, power shoulders and golden leotards were all incorporated in the costumes, the majority of which were form-fitting and exposed the singer's legs. Michael Quintanilla of San Antonio Express-News thought the fashion was akin to a "high-tech Blade Runner world". For the performance of several songs, Beyoncé also wore leopard-print pants and glow-in-the-dark bra with a blinking beacon affixed to her body.
The fashion and Beyoncé'ss look during the shows received praise from critics. Randall King of the Winnipeg Free Press noted that the fashion was inspired by "1970s space movie" fashion by Bob Mackie. Alice Jones of The Independent noted: "[the list of] 30 songs introduces us to any number of different Beyoncés – showgirl, balladeer, feminist, rock chick, gangster queen, cyborg – via off-stage costume changes and a leotard for every mood". Kathy McCabe of The Daily Telegraph noted that the shows featured "some of the most elaborate and revealing costumes of her career" thus far. A writer of the Evening Chronicle wrote that the sparkling outfits managed to capture the singer's personality with looks ranging from "NYPD cop to bride to Wonderwoman and beyond" all the while emphasizing her physique. Holly Burnes of The Daily Telegraph also praised the fashion writing that the singer's look included "one incredible costume after another: from a Mad Max look... to an angelic wedding dress Jay Hanna of The Sunday Times compared Beyoncé'ss look to a goddess, particularly with the costume she wore for "Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It)".
Concert synopsis