My entire teenage life has been spent listening to Beyoncé while getting ready in the morning. She has the best music to guarantee that you will have the confidence to make everyday your best day. I dance to Partition and Flawless while putting on my make up, and it is a game changer. The impact Beyoncé has made on our generation is truly incredible. I mean seriously her name autocorrects when you don’t put an accent over the “e”. So, when I found out Beyoncé was coming to Pittsburgh, I was probably one of the first ones to hop on the website and order tickets. The amount of joy that flooded my body when I received that confirmation email was honestly indescribable. That bliss only lasted for a few short moments till I realized what this meant: I had to prepare for a Beyoncé concert. I know that you’re thinking that I am dramatic, but this is not just any concert. It is the Queen Bee.
Preparing for any concert is a difficult task, but with the pressure of seeing Beyoncé flying over me, I decided to do a few simple things to get myself in the right mindset. I started 2 months earlier than my concert date. This first step was listening to her music 24/7. It is honestly disrespectful if you attend a Beyoncé concert and do not know every single word in all of her songs. A tip that can help you avoid one of those awkward moments where you sing a wrong lyric loud and confidently is looking up the artist’s set list. This is just a list of the songs that they have sung at their last concerts from this tour. I decided not to look at Beyoncé's set list because I love the feeling when your favorite song comes on at a concert. This meant that I had to listen to a lot of music because you never know when a good throwback song is going to come on. I started with her first album “Dangerously in Love” and worked my way all the way to watching the “Lemonade” film. I am not going to be caught of guard.
I had to start practicing my dance moves just as early. I didn’t want to pull a Taylor Swift at every award show ever. I wanted to be so good at dancing that there could be a slight chance Beyoncé might see me from the stage all the way in the highest balcony and ask me to dance on stage. I decided to do a little research which meant watching past music videos. I’m not going to lie; I looked very ridiculous at first. After a while, I began dancing pretty well. I think that I could jump into the “Single Ladies” music video and do a nice job in the background. I had the singing and dancing down, but I had a few more things ahead of me before I was ready for Beyoncé.
We all know that Beyoncé’s outfits are truly iconic, so picking out my outfit for this perfect night was not an easy task. I dug through all of my clothes before deciding that it would be an appropriate time to go get myself a new outfit to wear. While shopping, I vetoed so many cute outfits because they were not worthy enough to be in the same proximity as Beyoncé. I ended up picking an all black outfit to channel my inner Beyoncé. I soon discovered that how I wore the outfit was what mattered.
The emotional preparation was the most difficult for me. It didn’t even hit me how awesome this concert was going to be. I was going to be in the same arena as Beyoncé as she danced and sang my favorite songs for 3 hours. I have attended a lot of concerts in my lifetime, but nothing like this. I am going from blasting her music on my aux chord to dancing in the bathroom to seeing her live.
Well last night, I finally attended the Beyoncé concert. That’s when I really realized how big of an impact she has made on our generation. The feeling of hearing 50,000 fans singing, in all black outfits, “Drunk In Love” very out of tune, but perfect in its very own way is not going to be topped by anything anytime soon. I realized something else though. Every night Beyoncé sings to 50,000 bees in the hive that spent 2 months preparing to see her. Talk about pressure. Beyoncé didn’t pull me on stage, but I didn’t sing any lyrics wrong either. Well, maybe a few.
