The On the Run Tour was a co-headlining all-stadium tour by American singer Beyoncé and rapper Jay-Z, also known as The Carters. The joint tour came shortly after Beyoncé and Jay-Z had finished their solo tours — The Mrs. Carter Show World Tour and Magna Carter World Tour (both 2013–14), and is in support of their 2013 studio albums — Beyoncé and Magna Carta Holy Grail.Sources;
The tour’s name spins off from the duo’s 2013 song collaboration "Part II (On the Run)", included on Magna Carta Holy Grail. An official poster for the tour was released along with the announcement of the venture, showing Beyoncé and Jay-Z embracing whilst dressed in black ski masks, following the criminal "on the lam" narrative found in the couples' 2002 first single together, "'03 Bonnie & Clyde" and "Part II (On the Run)".
To promote the tour, a faux movie trailer video was premiered in May 2014 entitled "Run" (stylized as "RUN"). The video, which features eight celebrity cameo appearances, showcases 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. The tour became a commercial success, grossing $96 million in the first 19 North American shows and $109.7 million in total as well as attendance totalling at 979,781. It was the fifth highest-grossing tour of 2014, according to Pollstars annual year end tour chart. The show was broadcast in its entirety on September 20, 2014, airing on the American television network HBO, following the taping of the two concerts in Paris (France) where the tour concluded.
Background
Beyoncé and Jay-Z first collaborated in 2002 on "'03 Bonnie & Clyde", a song from Jay-Z's seventh studio album, The Blueprint 2: The Gift & The Curse. Since then, other notable collaborations between the pair include Beyoncé's 2003 number-one song, "Crazy in Love" featuring Jay-Z, 2013's "Part II (On the Run)" which is widely regarded as the follow-up to "'03 Bonnie & Clyde" and "Drunk in Love", the couple's collaboration from Beyoncé's self-titled fifth album, which was unexpectedly released in December 2013.
In July 2013, Jay-Z stated that a joint tour with Beyoncé was "slowly making sense, more sense every day". Throughout 2013 and 2014, during Beyoncé's The Mrs. Carter Show World Tour, Jay-Z made multiple guest appearances, starting in July at The Sound of Change Live charity concert where the couple performed "Crazy in Love" together, shortly followed by another guest appearance at Brooklyn's Barclays Center in August, where Jay-Z performed "Tom Ford" accompanied by Beyoncé's backing vocals as found in the song. During Beyoncé's final leg of the tour in 2014, Jay-Z appeared a total of seven times to perform their most recent collaboration, "Drunk in Love", together. Jay-Z accompanied Beyoncé on all six nights of her O2 Arena stint in London and finally, at the last night of the tour in Lisbon.
The Pasadena City Council were holding a meeting to decide whether to approve Beyoncé and Jay-Z's proposed concert on August 2, 2014, at the Rose Bowl. The vote on the matter took place because the Rose Bowl – nestled within an affluent, residential neighbourhood – has a limited number of events permitted per year of twelve, which can only be extended if approved by the city council. The concert was ultimately reported to be the eighteenth approved event of 2014 for the Rose Bowl.
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, compared to the On the Run Tour that took around one month. "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". When explaining the concept of the tour and its accompanying videos in a telephone conversation to New York-based director Dikayal Rimmasch, Jay-Z stated "We're not trying to do this literally, it's not that we're Bonnie and Clyde. We're on the run from everything. On the run from becoming a cliché. On the run from doing the same thing again." During their individual performances, Beyoncé was often backed by both male and female dancers and 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, beginning with several songs by Beyoncé first, followed by duets and afterwards Jay-Z rapping his songs. 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 "Daytona 500" with every member of her team working on a separate part of her look.
Fashion
Both Beyoncé and Jay-Z sported multiple outfits throughout the different performances of the tour. One of the more prominent designers for the tour was Versace, in which Beyoncé wore both a fishnet and leather Atelier black bodysuit (complete with a plunging neckline, a fishnet head mask and high heel combat boots), as well as a colourful Atelier bodysuit from the designer. The leather Atelier black bodysuit took approximately 200 hours to craft and was used for the opening number of the tour, "'03 Bonnie & Clyde". The colourful bodysuit was commented on by Versace who stated that the team had their inspiration from the street for the colour and added various crystals and stripes to show a "baseball vibe" while also trying to capture Beyoncé's energy. Beyoncé's tour shoes were designed by Stuart Weitzman and Joker's Closet. Other outfits included a denim jumpsuit and a bedazzled leotard bodysuit that "showed off her derrière". Beyoncé also sported more thematic and dramatic pieces of clothing, including a full bridal veil and a sweeping train made of a black-and-white American flag. The American flag outfit was designed by Riccardo Tisci of Givenchy and took over 500 hours to create. The American flag train was 16.4 feet long but weighed around 500 grams allowing it to fly in the wind. The individual stars on the outfit were hand-embroidered and its inspiration was said to be "American Danger: Bonnie & Clyde with a modern twist." For the performance of "Ring the Alarm", Beyoncé returned to designer Vrettos Vrettakos (with whom she collaborated with notably on her previous solo tour). Designed by Dennis Kolpodinos, Vrettakos produced a red, "couture 'crystal spirit' bodysuit" complete with fringe details on the limbs and "embellished with Swarovski crystals for stage-ready shine".
Alexander Wang designed a "bondage body suit" worn by Beyoncé during the show, as well as multiple pieces by Nicola Formichetti for Diesel. One of these included the previously mentioned denim outfit, which was "made from the company's patented Jogg Jean material, accented with hand-applied hardware and studwork, Swarovski crystal elements and black leather accessories", worn for the performance of "Run the World (Girls)". Formichetti commented on the outfit, saying "Every classic cops and robbers story blurs the lines between the good and bad, we wanted Beyoncé's to be both. Her look is one part police officer and two parts jailbait." Another piece designed by Diesel was an outfit consisting of jean-shorts and a leather jacket embroiled with the word "Texas". Biker gangs that developed in the United States after World War II served as an inspiration for the outfit; Beyoncé's was meant as a tribute to her hometown and a reminder of her roots. It took 4–5 hours to add the word Texas to the leather jacket. The bondage bodysuit was described as "a riff off of an urban bomber hoodie jacket that was cropped to expose a bondage bodysuit underneath that has graphic cutouts. When worn up, the oversized hood covers the face, adding an incognito element reminiscent of the On The Run theme." It also contained snakeskin seamed into the sleeves of the outfit. One of the more controversial pieces worn by Beyoncé during the On the Run Tour was a black, thong leotard that "put her bare rear end on display in a kind of cage-like cutout". Erica Schwiegershausen of The Cut blog wrote that the number was a "somewhat disorienting look". During the performance of "Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It)", Beyoncé revisited a leotard from the song's music video in a black and gold lace bodysuit designed by Michael Costello who wanted "Beyoncé to feel beautiful, strong, super sexy and ventilated" with the outfit. Lebanese designer Elie Saab created a bridal-themed, white long-sleeve lace-embellished jumpsuit for Beyoncé for the performances of "Resentment" and "Love On Top" which was part of his Pre-Fall 2014 collection.
Jay-Z's fashion was noted to be Kanye-esque, with pieces worn by him including rotating ensembles of black leather as well as "giant, billowing pant scarves". For the opening performance, Jay-Z appeared on stage in black sunglasses, gold chains, a black and white star speckled shirt and a black jacket. During the performance of "Big Pimpin'" Jay-Z wore a fedora.
Promotion