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On the Run Tour poster


The On the Run Tour is a co-headlining stadium tour by Beyoncé and husband Jay Z . The tour followed the completion of Beyoncé and Jay Z's solo tours, Mrs. Carter Show World Tour The Mrs. Carter Show World Tour (2013-2014) and the Magna Carter World Tour (2013-2014), respectively.

The tour name is inspired by the duo's 2013 song "Part II (On the Run)", which appears on Jay Z's album Magna Carta Holy Grail. The official tour poster features Beyoncé and Jay Z wearing black ski masks, a nod to their 2002 first single together, "'03 Bonnie & Clyde" and "Part II (On the Run)", which is the continuation to the former.

To promote the tour, a faux movie trailer video was premiered in May 2014 entitled "Run" (stylized as "RUN"). The video, filled with multiple celebrity cameos, features the couple in a variety of Bonnie and Clyde style, action and gun packed situations. The tour itself was noted to follow this same theme throughout, with similar video interludes incorporated into the production of the show. Critics generally lauded the tour, praising the extravagant set list, dynamic and detailed theme and story of the show and both artists performance abilities, however some felt the on stage chemistry between the couple was not what it could have been. Due to the large demand and tickets selling out in minutes in multiple locations, extra tour dates were added to the itinerary. Commercially, the tour was a success, grossing over $100 million in the first 19 North American shows alone, as well as attendance topping 850,000. The tour is set to broadcast in its entirety on September 20, 2014, airing on the US television network HBO, following the scheduled taping of the two concerts in Paris, France, where the tour will conclude.

Development[]

The tour was "conceived and launched fast compared to most stadium tours" according to Live Nation, who noted that most tours of this nature take more than a year of planning. "It came together quite quickly, around mid-March," Omar Al-Joulani of Live Nation North America commented. "By April, we had everything together, and once the routing was in place we had about three weeks until the tour was announced." Following the general sale of tour dates, fans were left concerned as the July 11, 2014 show in East Rutherford, New Jersey remained pending to go on sale for many weeks, despite all other dates already being available to the public. Some reports stated that the reason for this was that the state of New Jersey had implemented a legislation resulting in 95% of tickets for an event having to be available to the public. The show was eventually put on sale to the public on June 4, 2014. The On the Run Tour was the first tour to be a part of "Official Events" – the collaboration of Facebook and Live Nation in which the size and scale of Ticketmaster's database is leveraged as events promoted by Live Nation are imported to Artists' Facebook Pages as "Official Events", providing fans with direct links to Ticketmaster to purchase verified tickets.

The tour was stated to have a running theme throughout the performances of being "on the run" by the Miami New Times, whether it is from "the media, their place in pop music, the haters, the bullshit and sometimes even each other". During their individual performances, Beyoncé was often backed by both male and female dancers, however Jay-Z was noted to hold the stage for multiple songs without assistance. Beyoncé was backed by an all female band during her solo songs, whilst Jay-Z was accompanied by other male instrumentalists, however both artist's musicians collaborated for the majority of the performance. Video interludes filled with "cop chases and other violent outbursts" carried the storytelling between songs. The performances of the joint tour was said to be split up similarly to Jay-Z's previous joint venture with Kanye West, the Watch the Throne Tour. Beyoncé and Jay-Z would take turn holding down the stage, with "a couple Beyonce tracks here, sharing the spotlight for some duets and then Jay having his turn to run through rap classics." Both artists sported multiple outfits from a variety of fashion designers throughout the performances of the tour. In Beyoncé's case, makeup artist Sir John Barnette commented on her quick changes backstage between performances, comparing them to "the Daytona 500, when the cars come in and they have to hurry up and change the wheels in, like, twenty seconds. When she comes back, everyone is grabbing a piece of her."

Broadcasts and Recordings[]

In July 2014, it was announced that HBO would exclusively air the On the Run Tour in full at some point in September, following the upcoming filming of the concerts in Paris, France at the scheduled September 12 and 13, 2014 shows in the city. The shows will be shot by music video director Jonas Akerlund, whom has directed numerous music videos for both Knowles and Jay-Z.[1]President of the network Michael Lombardo stated in a press release "This is a major musical event that belongs on HBO, it's going to be a night to remember."[2]Following the announcement of the upcoming airing of the tour, a promotional trailer was released on HBO's official YouTube channel, showing professional footage and segments of the On the Run Tour.[3]On July 22, 2014, Beyoncé confirmed the air date of the special to be September 20, 2014, on her official Facebook page, along with another short video trailer.[4]

In August 2014, another promotional video was uploaded to HBO's official YouTube account. The trailer began with Beyoncé dressed as a jazz singer staring down a captive Jay-Z in the audience, whilst singing Nancy Sinatra's cover version of "Bang Bang (My Baby Shot Me Down)". The trailer then cuts to footage of live performances from the On the Run Tour, featuring Beyoncé and Jay-Z interacting.[5]HBO will be using 20 different cameras to record the two shows.

Setlist[]

This set list is representative of the first performance in Miami, Florida. It does not represent all concerts for the duration of the tour.

  1. "'03 Bonnie & Clyde"
  2. "Upgrade U"
  3. "Crazy in Love"
  4. "Show Me What You Got"
  5. "Diamonds from Sierra Leone (Remix)"
  6. "Niggas in Paris"
  7. "Tom Ford"
  8. "Run the World (Girls)"
  9. "Flawless"
  10. "Yoncé"
  11. "Jigga My Nigga"
  12. "Dirt off Your Shoulder"
  13. "Naughty Girl"
  14. "Big Pimpin'"
  15. "Ring the Alarm"
  16. "On to the Next One"
  17. "Clique"
  18. "Diva"
  19. "Baby Boy"
  20. "U Don't Know"
  21. "Ghost" / "Haunted"
  22. "No Church in the Wild"
  23. "Drunk in Love"
  24. "Public Service Announcement"
  25. "Why Don't You Love Me"
  26. "Holy Grail"
  27. "FuckWithMeYouKnowIGotIt"
  28. "Beach Is Better"
  29. "Partition"
  30. "99 Problems"
  31. "If I Were a Boy"
  32. "Ex-Factor"
  33. "Song Cry"
  34. "Resentment"
  35. "Love on Top"
  36. "Izzo (H.O.V.A.)"
  37. "I Just Wanna Love U (Give It 2 Me)"
  38. "Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It)"
  39. "Hard Knock Life (Ghetto Anthem)"
  40. "Pretty Hurts"
  41. "Part II (On the Run)"
  42. "Young Forever"
  43. "Halo"
  44. "Lift Off"
  • On the final two shows in Paris, France, rapper Nicki Minaj joined Knowles to perform the "Flawless" remix
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