Tuesday, July 05, 2011 21:38 PM
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Deanne Whitfield, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
To the left, to the left, all you diva wannabes, move over -- the real thing is coming to town. Beyonce Knowles, former lead singer of the R&B; group Destiny's Child and winner of five Grammy Awards, is set to wow Jakarta in her world tour concert ""The Beyonce Experience"" on Nov. 1 at the Swargaloka Jakarta International Event and Convention Centre (JITEC) in Mangga Dua Square.
In what promises to be the most spectacular musical show by an international award-winning artist to visit Indonesia in years, Beyonce, backed by a 10-piece all-female band and accompanied by 10 dancers on stage, will entertain her fans in a 90-minute extravaganza.
Beyonce will perform songs from her debut solo album Dangerously in Love (2003) and second solo album B-Day (2006) as well as a medley of Destiny's Child hits. The singer/songwriter, who has also enjoyed success as an actress after featuring in the films Austin Powers: Goldmember, The Pink Panther and Dreamgirls, needs no supporting act for the Asian leg of her tour.
The Beyonce Experience world tour, which kicked off in Tokyo, Japan, in April and will finish in Taipei, Taiwan, in November, has sold out every show thus far. The Jakarta show, with an estimated audience of around 5,000, will be concert number 91 of a total 97 in the world tour.
The diva herself is scheduled to arrive in Jakarta on Oct. 31, together with 75 stage and crew members and 60 tons of stage equipment, most of which is lighting.
The Beyonce Experience world tour was scheduled to visit Malaysia on Nov. 1 but the show was canceled after Beyonce refused to comply with the country's dress code for women, which meant she would have to change many of her outfits. Kuala Lumpur was replaced by Jakarta as the tour's next stop after Bangkok, Thailand.
Singapore, a stop usually included in a world tour of this magnitude, will also miss out on seeing Beyonce live on stage. Local promoters for The Beyonce Experience tour, Electronic City Entertainment and Nepathya, said in a press conference Tuesday many fans from Singapore, Malaysia and Brunei would be traveling to Indonesia to see Beyonce perform and had already purchased tickets for the Jakarta show.
To see Beyonce live, a fan will need to fork out at least Rp 750,000 for a ticket; the cheapest available. Those who wish to get closer to the stage will need to buy a ""gold"" ticket (Rp 2,000,000), a ""platinum"" ticket (Rp 2,500,000) or a ""diamond"" ticket (Rp 3,000,000). When queried about the ticket prices, the promoters said the pricing was ""standard"" for such an international performance by one of the world's most popular divas.
