This is a direct result of the fact that she's beyond fashionably late, eventually strutting onstage in fluorescent heels as vertiginous as the venue's Level 4. But then she's probably beyond fashion these days, such is her omnipotence in the field of adolescent dreams she presides over. This is the first night of a disjointed 10-night stint down the far end of the Jubilee Line that's crumbled and sprinkled out from now until December 22nd, and this London residency, comprising part of her The Loud Tour, has seen Rihanna break records like she once professed to have smashed up dishes, becoming the first female solo artist to not only put pen to paper on such a lengthy run, but also to sell the whole lot out. With this feat achieved before a single crunched strum or florid drum fill (of which, tonight, there are far too many), Robyn Rihanna Fenty could almost be forgiven for inserting diminished effort, and while she emerges stage-centre to the sort of rapture that'd deafen in the Daily Mail office were Kate Middleton to stumble in just gone nine in the morn having had it a little too large in Club 151 the previous eve, tonight's show (at least visually) is seemingly devoid of the spectacular that these colossal affairs demand. She opens with a roughed up take on Only Girl (In The World), and by God it's befittingly loud as the shrill of the crowd, that almighty resonance only experienced when kings, queens, princes, and princesses of pop take to stages of this size, jars acerbically against the clamour thundered from the far end of the room. As she bellows of wanting to be made to feel like "the only girl in the world", like "the only one that you'll ever love", there's nigh on 20,000 in attendance willing to fulfil such a role, as females shriek and sway and males cower behind a façade of supposed apathy, their eyes transfixed on the monumental screens either side of the stage, only averting their gaze when clocked.
She hurtles from one end of the stage to the other on what looks like a life-size YO! Sushi conveyor belt, waving at everyone and no one in particular as the hits (Disturbia, Shut Up and Drive, Man Down) continue to tumble out of her skimpy stage getup, or getups - innumerable costume changes of course ensue. However few other hallmarks of the stereotypically grandiose stadium staging are exhibited: there's no trapeze act, no chariots rolling through the adoring, no acoustic set beside the sound desk. Not skimping on stage design, surely? Not at £55 a ticket... When Lady Gaga claimed to have blown her budget on the revamped The Monster Ball Tour show when she hauled it back to this very arena it seemed an eccentric comment, even for that odd discoball of a twig. Yet if Gaga's almost excessively theatrical Broadway-meets-Billboard Hot 100 show may be considered gaudy old D&G, Rihanna's has an air of New Look to it. She salutes her devout fanbase, also known inexplicably as her 'Navy', from atop a garish neon pink cannon for the explicitly sexual Hard, before writhing about on a revolving fetish arena to S&M. The provocative smash sounds forever more like Reel 2 Real's I Like to Move It, and sees her at her most preposterously seductive: she yelps of being excited by chains and whips, those mesmerised by the screens seemingly similarly roused, before tying herself up in white plastic chains and being disrobed by the wandering limbs of her troupe of backing dancers. Fortunately there's not even so much of a whiff of "sex in the air", given the number of minors in attendance although she does then drag up an unsuspecting gent from one of the pits within sweating distance either side of her band and proceeds to rum pa pa pum his helpless figure. It's outrageous, scandalous, and all that, but kicks the evening into a higher gear, as Run This Town runs into the iPhone-aloft euphoria of the Dragostea din tei-sampling T.I. banger, Live Your Life. Bizarrely it feels life-enriching, if only temporarily. There's then moments of duelling keytar smothered in slap bass, and a snare solo from the woman of the hour as she extends out into the fringes of the crowd, before a grim hattrick of prime FM schmaltz in Unfaithful, Hate That I Love You, and California King Bed follows. Donning a canary yellow ball gown, it's mawkishly fairytale-like, Rihanna now resembling Disney's Beauty within this grotesque beast of a venue. However when the fireworks begin to spurt, it's almost unfeasible not to be swept away atop this crest of crushing melodrama.
The relentless slew of hits (periodically permeated by what look like perfume ads with Rihanna honking suggestively on an enormous cigar) then subsides for a much-needed moment's respite, before she returns for a diamond-encrusted encore: sparse elements of Pon de Replay melt into What's My Name that shimmers with guitars daubed with treble, which in turn transforms into the uproarious Rude Boy, backed by M.I.A.-esque graphics. Rihanna then downs a nondescript shot in honour of her monumental coup in the capital, exuberantly launching into Cheers (Drink To That). The show becomes progressively more loose throughout, and it's all the better for it, as she continues to parade the stage with the swagger jagger of endless hopeless X Factor hopefuls. The backing track is employed heavily throughout, serving as a crutch to support the boundless energy of it all, and never more so than on the gloriously trashy Don't Stop The Music, however it's her second snapshot encore that enchants above all: a superlative take on Love The Way You Lie (Part II) sees her soaring atop a grand piano that swirls at an elevation of about twenty feet. Of course she ends with Umbrella, and yes, it rains confetti on those not to have frantically exited the building to chase the tube, Rihanna's preferred means of TFL-organised transport. Pretty much every shot's a coconut for the Barbadian tonight, and they're all as sweet as she now seems.
