RIHANNA at the Air Canada Centre, Wednesday, April 13. Rating: NNNN
Rihanna’s Anti album is her first not to feature a glamourous self-portrait on the cover. Its sounds are not exactly anti-pop but some might consider its mix of smouldering rock and cloudy R&B to be anti-radio by 2016’s hard-charging standards.
Naturally, the Barbadian pop star’s “anti” theme extends to her Anti world tour, which subverted expectations right from its subdued opening song. Rihanna began the show not with a banger, but by belting out a ballad. And a sad one at that – Stay – dressed in a hooded trench and bodysuit combo.
It was moment of minimalist glamour to be sure, but the antithesis of the glittering gold couture of her last solo arena trek.
As such, the first show in Rihanna’s two-night stand at the Air Canada Centre felt like a reintroduction of sorts a concert stripped of perfunctory routines and Vegas-y costumes typical for a pop star with a back catalogue of stone-cold hits, and whose Work single is enjoying its eighth week atop the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart.
Rihanna has always exuded an easy charisma on stage but her vocals have historically been an afterthought in the pop-show production. Opening with a string of slow jams – Stay, Love The Way You Lie and Sex With Me – immediately announced that the Anti Tour would be all about RiRi: The Vocal Powerhouse.
But not before a bunch of dancers showed up to rev the crowd to bass-heavy strip-club bangers like Birthday Cake, Pour It Up and the Bitch Better Have My Money, which her six-piece band augmented with liquidy synth washes, chimes and snappy hi-hats.
A medley of her guest features on hip-hop hits – Live My Life, Run This Town, All Of The Lights – kept up the brisk pace and segued into a singalong of breakthrough hit Umbrella and then new song Desperado, at the end of which the lead guitarist moved to centrestage for an extended solo while Rihanna changed into a fringed and beaded sheer jumpsuit and hooded cape with a long, highly twirl-able train.
Now dressed for the dancehall section of the show, Rihanna launched into Man Down, Rude Boy and Work as a pair of death-dropping voguers in glittering bodysuits struck poses. A mashup of Calvin Harris’s How Deep Is Your Love with slowed-down version of Calvin Harris-produced pop hit We Found Love followed but failed to ignite the crowd the way the original had lit up clubs in summer 2011. Rihanna didn’t seem that into it either, letting the backing tracks do most of the work on that one.
But a spot-on rendition of Where Have You Been reawakened the diva and the audience, which finally had a chance to indulge in some proper build-drop-build-drop action. By this point the initially empty stage had sprouted to life with all sorts of colours and shapes.
At first, only a white sheet covered the seats behind the band, recalling the empty backstage look that opens the Talking Heads’ Stop Making Sense concert film. As in that documentary, the set pieces evolved step-by-step as the show progressed, with inflatable shapes, oily psychedelic lights, a plastic tarp and dripping foam creating layered textural effects around Rihanna, who ended the show wearing an oversized brown suit that David Byrne might like.
This brown-suit period was also the most thrilling part the show, as it leaned heavily on Anti’s best songs that, incidentally, gave Rihanna a chance to flex her range.
A straightforward cover of Tame Impala’s dubby pop masterpiece New Person Same Old Mistakes was full of detached cool, but she really let loose with soulful ad-libbing and snarling key changes (and crotch-grabbing) during foul-mouthed Motown throwback Love On The Brain. She followed with the final number, an equally flamboyant rendition of slow-burner Kiss It Better.
There’s a sense right now that a lot of big pop stars are sick of the dance-pop status quo. Rihanna, Beyoncé and Lady Gaga all seem to be exploring more personal sounds, and the Anti Tour suggests Rihanna is no longer content with the usual motions female pop stars are obliged to go through onstage – the exhausting choreography, the fan lap-dance routine, the 28 outfit changes.
Yes, there were dancers and high fashion. And, yes, there was a foam machine. But mostly there was Rihanna singing a bunch of songs into a microphone while standing in front of a band. In 2016, that is “anti.”
kevinr@nowtoronto.com | @kevinritchie
