When Beyoncé released her country-inflected opus “Cowboy Carter” last year, the album’s cover image depicted the megastar in rodeo-ready regalia, riding side saddle on a white steed while hoisting a U.S. flag high into the air. Her use of all-American iconography prompted fresh rounds of discourse, with the flag-bearing a particular sticking point. Some fans felt disappointed by the choice, especially since so much of Beyoncé’s expansive catalogue has been about boldly finding one’s own way within a nation that’s not always welcoming to the marginalized, particularly Black women. Others, while pointing out that she had deliberately obscured some of the flag’s stars and stripes on the cover, suggested that Beyoncé had instead used it to question what it means to be American as well who is often left out of those conversations.
But during the throttling kickoff to her worldwide Cowboy Carter Tour on Monday in Los Angeles, the first of five nights at Inglewood’s SoFi Stadium, Beyoncé doubled down on this symbolic display of Americana with blistering panache. Three songs in, she transitioned from her simmering take on the Beatles’ “Blackbird” into a crackling rendition of “The Star-Spangled Banner” (set to, as Rolling Stone noted, Jimi Hendrix’s chilling 1969 version of the national anthem as performed at Woodstock). Near the show’s close, the multihyphenate performer wrapped herself in a serpentine dress emblazoned with the flag — shortly after singing from a Cadillac towering above the denim and cowboy hat-clad crowd, all while gripping the stars and stripes tightly.
The opening night of Beyoncé’s Cowboy Carter Tour at So-Fi Stadium in Los Angeles on April 28, 2025.
Julian Dakdouk/Mason Poole/Parkwood Entertainment
The opening night of Beyoncé’s Cowboy Carter Tour at So-Fi Stadium in Los Angeles on April 28, 2025.
Julian Dakdouk/Mason Poole/Parkwood Entertainment
In a thrilling and tightly paced set that spanned nearly three hours, Beyoncé’s vocals sounded downright breathtaking as she reclaimed her place as an American, as a Texan and as a musician subverting the country music genre. The latter, in particular, is a tradition that’s kept her out of its loftiest (and primarily white) institutions, despite it being indebted to inventive Black musicians’ crucial musical contributions. Arriving at a time when the current presidential administration is stifling speech, upending civil liberties and policing who gets to call themselves American at all, Beyoncé pointedly subverted this long-standing bastion of patriotism to declare something else entirely. After she concluded “The Star-Spangled Banner,” her hand over her heart, she displayed the following mantra on screen, which was also embossed on some of the merchandise sold just outside the gates: “Never ask permission for something that already belongs to you.”
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Beyoncé has commented on larger sociopolitical conversations before, at times subtly and at others more overtly. (Remember when she took the 2014 VMAs stage and proclaimed herself a “feminist?”) Yet placing words like “history can’t be erased” and flashing images of country music forebears like Linda Martell behind her feel weightier in a moment when declarative statements are becoming more muted, especially by those firmly in the public eye. Blurring the faces of real-life Fox News anchors who decried her genre-bending entry into country music last year while singing “America Has a Problem” at a podium festooned with mics and stock tickers that flashed all red behind her, no less — it felt daring to witness.
The opening night of Beyoncé’s Cowboy Carter Tour at So-Fi Stadium in Los Angeles on April 28, 2025.
Julian Dakdouk/Mason Poole/Parkwood Entertainment
Still, those more charged elements were hardly didactic. The 36-song set sprinted through much of “Cowboy Carter,” with a brief section nodding to house-imbued bangers like “Cuff It” from her previous album “Renaissance” that blurred the line between disco and hoedown, respectively. (The two albums are part of a conceptual trilogy.)
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This being a Beyoncé show, it was a full-tilt theatrical spectacle wrapped in a pop star sheen, rife with pyrotechnics shooting out of a golden-plated piano, her riding a mechanical bull and a semi-truck, and a robotic arm pouring her a tall glass of whiskey before she suddenly disappeared into a hole in the stage. A violinist flanked by two ballerinas graced the massive stage later on; this was after two Irish step dancers had fully brought the house down. When Beyoncé reemerged, she donned a flouncy, color-shifting dress while delivering her operatic number “Daughter.” Beyoncé’s daughter Blue Ivy danced with her for much of the set, and her 7-year-old Rumi also joined her for a heart-tugging take on her song “Protector.”
The opening night of Beyoncé’s Cowboy Carter Tour at So-Fi Stadium in Los Angeles on April 28, 2025.
Julian Dakdouk/Mason Poole/Parkwood Entertainment
The opening night of Beyoncé’s Cowboy Carter Tour at So-Fi Stadium in Los Angeles on April 28, 2025.
Julian Dakdouk/Mason Poole/Parkwood Entertainment
If Beyoncé had first-night jitters or if she was in her head about the tour reportedly not selling well, none of that was evident at SoFi. The place filled up, and the crowd’s energy never flagged during the marathon concert. As she barreled through the album, with high points including a barn burner in “Formation” and a scintillating “Daddy Lessons” (her first time performing it since Nashville shunned the Texan’s take on country music nearly a decade ago). At one point, she even teased Destiny’s Child’s “Bills, Bills, Bills,” making clear that her ultimate strength has always been just that: versatility. Beyoncé possesses a virtuosic ability to harness storied genres and impress herself upon them so strongly that it seems wild that she wasn’t doing it all along.
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Coming off the heels of the country music festival Stagecoach just a few hundred miles east, she could have likely nabbed some guests to join her onstage, such as past collaborator Shaboozey, as she brought this country epic to life. Yet her decision to center this show on her own merits, with assists from her daughters, her killer dancers and a sensational band, is notable on its own. Coupled with home videos of a young Beyoncé doing vocal warmups and a smattering of family photos, it became more about cementing her own legacy within a cultural history framework, a lineage that’s become part of a living continuum.
Opening night of Beyonce’s Cowboy Carter Tour at So-Fi Stadium in Los Angeles Calif., April 28, 2025.
Julian Dakdouk/Mason Poole/Parkwood Entertainment
The opening night of Beyoncé’s Cowboy Carter Tour at So-Fi Stadium in Los Angeles on April 28, 2025.
Julian Dakdouk/Mason Poole/Parkwood Entertainment
Beyoncé’s albums have become synonymous with the fully realized visual language that accompanies them, and the interstitials in between sets lent the show some additional multimedia heft. It featured snippets of an Old West film, in which Beyoncé took on the role of an outlaw who bested a fellow cowboy in a duel at high noon. Later, another showed Beyoncé as a 300-foot-tall woman who delighted in leaving Paris, New York, Hollywood and even Washington, D.C., to quake in the wake of her steps.
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But in keeping with the show’s overarching theme — that nobody can take your sense of self, which is rightfully yours to begin with — Beyoncé ended the extravaganza with her dancers donning (what else?) the flag as capes, with her in an American flag dress. As they stood before the roaring crowd, Beyoncé and her dancers stood poignantly before a giant bust of the Statue of Liberty onstage. Lady Liberty’s face was obscured by a bandana. As ever, she held the flame in her right hand. But the hand that has long held that perpetually burning fire, a beacon to the tired, poor and huddled masses, could also be seen to be balling itself into a fist.
