Live Review: Solange

Solange Knowles showed off her unique power as Vivid's 2018 headliner. Knowles, who has well and truly stepped out from her sister's shadow and beyond her former status as a back-up singer for Destiny's Child, reached for the stars.

The stage - resembling a white temple with pyramid-flanked steps leading partway up to a massive hanging orb - transported onlookers to another world that crossed almost as many aesthetics as Solange's music. This was not simply entertainment but a performance piece, minimalist and highly choreographed, brimming with out-of-this-world iconography. Rise was a meditative call to arms, as sparse-yet-intricate as the choreography. A simple bassline melded with the hi-hat, an intermittent shattering of the thick air, and both laid the foundation for Solange's unfathomably rich and soulful voice.

Weary was slow and artful, with the band cavorting about the stage as if in a mad ballet. This was emblematic of Solange's entire performance: a beautifully orchestrated frenzy breaking out of the tranquillity of the bassline. A mantra-like refrain doubled and reconstructed, topped off by musicianship more stunning than the synchronised movements.

"This is church tonight," Solange said, bringing the Concert Hall crowd to their feet, moving into the spellbinding Cranes In The Sky. The rim shots were so clear, trilling through the air as an exuberant horn section leapt about the space. Solange's moves were a patchwork pastiche, with shades of ballet, jazz and gospel, sometimes reminiscent of Egyptian friezes yet made completely her own.

Don't You Wait had a decidedly dancey feel, with the ensemble reminiscent of maenads and satyrs in some alternate past, blending surreal imagery with a Sade-esque groove. The audience burst out from their seats as the red-lit pyramids and globe were bathed in a fluorescent blue.

Mad featured biting lyrics and a smattering of intergalactic harmonies, an accumulative effect as instruments joined one after another. The repeated rhetorical question - "Where'd your love go?" - had a highly charged personal sentiment that begged answering.

This bled smoothly into the rousing FUBU, an anthem for many in the crowd. Solange strayed from the stage for one of the highlights of the performance, dancing in the crowd while the horn section jigged side to side and blew their hearts out. The catchcry of the song was infectious and lyrics like, "When you driving in your tinted car/And you're criminal, just who you are," never more pertinent in Solange's home country as well as all across "the whole wide world".

Solange proved she is more than an entertainer; she is a powerhouse, a pioneer and a prodigious talent. No song proved this more than the show's closer, Don't Touch My Hair; an event all of its own, it was a festival of her fury - a final spectacle of her fine-crafted fantasy.