At NRG Stadium, however, Beyoncé's nearly flawless machine hit a minor hiccup when a decked-out, suspended stage prop, a sparkling red drop-top convertible, malfunctioned during her show-stopping performance of "16 Carriages." The car, designed to float her aloft smoothly as if she were riding some heavenly chariot, began to tip to the side sans warning, transforming Beyoncé into the very literal "sittin' sideways" over her audience.
When the car started to lean at a scary angle, Beyoncé clutched at a cable and a flagpole like a pro and hung on. She ordered her crew calmly and with a calm, firm, "Stop. Stop, stop, stop, stop." The music cut and the lights held. And the car gradually descended to earth like a diva coming down.
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After safely landing on terra firma, Beyoncé grinned at the audience, to whom she had proclaimed: "If ever I fall, I know y'all will catch me." That's what we like to call stage presence.
Rather than let the moment awkwardly become part of tour lore, Beyoncé got on Instagram with a reel that had fans cackling. She shared a clip of the incident as the backdrops fell, and she chose none other than Houston rapper Paul Wall's "Sittin' Sidewayz," featuring Big Pokey, to accompany the visuals a perfect Houston homage and the most hilarious soundtrack she could have picked. Clips of her theatrically wobbling about in the air, awkwardly flying just by being kicked off-balance, only became another brilliant montage to celebrate, and we loved her more for it.
"I love you, Houston," she wrote, a reminder to fans of why she'll always be their hometown hero.
Parkwood Entertainment later explained the incident was just a "technical glitch." Still, while a resolution was quickly found, they'd scrambled to find a quick fix, and fans couldn't help but notice 16 Carriages' absence from the setlist the next night.
"Why did you put 16 Carriages on punishment??? It was the car that was out of line, not the song," quipped one fan.
"You know you coulda done 16 Carriages. That's not right, but I still love you," another wrote.
Whether she's hovering over the stage or roasting herself on social media, Beyoncé demonstrated once again that she cannot be shaken, even when the stage is. And she made it a laugh, a moment, a memory, in true Houston fashion.
Whether on red carpets or from the back of red convertibles suspended in midair, Queen Bey always knows how to secure her crown and her sense of humor above her head.
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