Review: Beyoncé’s Cowboy Carter Tour Scorches D.C.
Beyoncé and posse saddled up for a sultry, spectacular Cowboy Carter Tour stop, bringing heat and horsepower to a sweltering D.C. night.
July 9, 2025
Beyoncé performs on Monday, July 7, at Northwest Stadium – Photo: Julian Dakdouk
The weatherman said it would be hot Monday night, and he wasn’t lying. The torrid D.C. heat had the cowboys, gals, and dolls sweating out of their boots on night two of Beyoncé’s record-breaking Cowboy Carter Tour at Northwest Stadium, in Landover, Maryland.
Even the ever-cool Mrs. Carter must have been feeling the ninety-plus degrees. Bey and her dancers broke out boxer briefs and sports bras — new custom crystal-beaded Calvin Klein, of course — midway through her set and in plenty of time for a red-hot “Heated,” part of the show’s glorious return to Renaissance.
But Bey began, bless her, draped in a full feather cape by Elie Saab over a red, white, and blue spangled Saab bodysuit. Entering to the sound of a galloping horse and the crowd screaming her name, the head cowgirl in charge lit into “Ameriican Requiem,” a rock-and-soul call for the nation to live up to its ideals, off the singer’s Grammy-winning Cowboy Carter album.
“Now’s the time to let love in,” she sang, before strutting towards revolution with a scorching take on Jimi Hendrix’s “Star Spangled Banner,” followed by Lemonade banger “Freedom,” both delivered with powerhouse vocals. The feathered cape was soon flung to the floor. The lady was sangin’ for real, aptly demonstrated during a rousing call-and-response breakdown of the Ike-and-Tina-style “Ya-Ya.”
“Can you say, Yaaahhh?” The audience sang, “Yaaahhh!” Beyoncé smiled her approval. “Y’all lit,” she pronounced. She paired the song with “Why Don’t You Love Me,” a track off the game-changing 2008 LP I Am… Sasha Fierce, and one of the show’s precious few trips back to Beyoncé’s world before Renaissance and Cowboy Carter, the first two acts of a planned three-act cycle.
This is pointedly not a tour of catalog hits. Rather, the Cowboy Carter Tour buckles down to continue staking the artist’s claim — and the claim of Black Americans, in general — to the arena of country music. Albeit, as she clarified herself, Cowboy Carter is not a country album — it’s a Beyoncé album.
The same applies to the tour, which is very much in her live performance wheelhouse of vocals-led, choreo-heavy, impeccably-timed production, served with tight backup, high-fashion costuming, and polished, pertinent visuals.
On Monday, the timing of the LED stage’s massive screens was consistently delayed a second or two, but the camerawork and direction still captured every dazzling detail of the performance. A kick-ass Beyoncé performance, that is, infused with a country-and-western-goes-Southern sensibility that extended even to the show’s vogue ballroom dance break (featuring Renaissance tour standout Honey Balenciaga).
That country sensibility came laced with ample sex appeal on slinky “Desert Eagle” and torchy bop “Riiverdance,” a definite crowd fave based on the enthusiastic reaction to the song’s opening guitar loop. Folks sang along to “II Hands II Heaven,” clapped along to the brief taste of “Tyrant,” and bounced along to clubby Renaissance dance floor magnet “Thique.”
Beyoncé performs on Monday, July 7, at Northwest Stadium in D.C. – Photo: Julian Dakdouk
Watching the stadium go wild for “I’m That Girl,” “Cozy,” and “Alien Superstar,” it was clear fans are still living for Renaissance. But they were there for the Cowboy Carter rodeo (including my personal CC fave “16 Carriages,” which, alas, has remained off the set list since Bey’s flying Caddy went sideways a while back in Houston).
Rocking every form of creative Western-inspired attire — American flag daisy dukes, cowhide dusters, sleeveless jean jackets, Cowboy Carter sashes and tees, and cowboy hats on nearly everybody — the crowd only sat down during the video interludes. Who could blame them as the heat index rose over 100 degrees?
Probably not Blue Ivy Carter, Bey’s talented terpsichorean teen, who danced all out — including her impressive solo during “America Has a Problem” — and definitely at moments had a look on her face of, “Man, it’s hot out here.”
And not her superstar mom, who, at the concert’s conclusion, thanked the crowd for giving so much energy, despite the heat. Still, no one in the building gave more energy than did the diva herself, leaving us all inspired to let love in, and to keep running towards freedom, “’Cause a winner don’t quit on themselves.”
Beyoncé: Cowboy Carter Tour (★★★★☆) rides into Atlanta for four nights from July 10 to 14, and then wraps up in Las Vegas July 25 and 26. Visit www.beyonce.com/tour.
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