Rihanna | Gig review

by Chloe Cross

★★★★✰

The O2, Peninsula Square, SE10

 

The Loud tour is Rihanna’s fourth tour and consists of a massive 98 dates around Europe. But despite nearing the end, she is still clearly loving every second of it.

Rihanna first entered in a giant plastic orb, wearing a neon-blue coat dress, fishnets and tacky neon earrings, singing Only Girl In The World.

The crowd went mental throughout, while two fans were picked from the audience to join in with the backing dancers.

She followed this with multiple costume and theme changes, each more striking and more naked than the previous one.

During S&M she was whipped, grabbed her crotch multiple times and towards the end, picked a lucky man out of the VIP area to pin down and grind upon, before disappearing through the floor.

She disappeared to another part of the stage during Glamorous Life to perform an impressive drum solo, afterwards, she threw the sticks for her great Facebook following, nicknamed the ‘Rihanna Navy’, to catch.

The set list also included a medley of Run This Town, by Jay-Z and Kanye West and Live Your Life, by rapper T.I, which was surprising considering she only featured in the chorus of both.

When Rihanna came out with another outfit change, consisting of tiny shorts, a crop-top and, of course, Ray Bans, the crowd knew exactly what was next and went crazy to Cheers (Drink to That).

For the encore, she came on in her final costume change of a stripy red, white and blue crop top and shorts and sang an emotional, Love the Way You Lie (Part II) on a floating piano.

The show ended with her current number one, We Found Love - a song that support act Calvin Harris had previously played on his DJ set and no-one expected to be repeated by Rihanna herself.

The onlookers went from staring at her in awe, to joining in and dancing like crazy, especially when pink and gold confetti started falling from above.

‘Sex, fun and the empowered woman’ was clearly the theme to the night. It was a colourful tour that most definitely lived up to its name and left every boy wanting her and every girl wanting to be her– that’s our RiRi!