Review: Beyoncé lowers the fire but still brings the heat as her Formation tour hits L.A. again

How angry can a wronged person remain, and for how long?

Those questions provided one way of looking at Beyoncé’s concert Wednesday night at Dodger Stadium, the second time she’s brought her blockbuster Formation World Tour to the Los Angeles area following a sold-out show in May at the Rose Bowl.

Back then, the pop superstar had just surprise-released her album “Lemonade,” on which she excoriates an unfaithful husband in vividly detailed language that felt all the more shocking for how little she says in public about her real-life marriage to Jay Z.

A prime example? Actually, never mind — the sharpest jabs can’t be quoted here.

Beyoncé ultimately finds resolution on the record, in songs like “Sandcastles” and “All Night,” with the latter’s insistence that “nothing real can be threatened.” But her performance at the Rose Bowl, which drew in large part from “Lemonade,” crackled with acrimony.

Here was a woman, you sensed, seizing the opportunity to finally unload some things.

That was four months ago, though; more to the point, it was dozens of tour stops ago. Since then, Beyoncé has sung “Sorry” and “Don’t Hurt Yourself” — and given withering looks while stomping across stages — in cities all over the world, from New York to London to Milan. And she’s brought excerpts of her production to shows like the BET Awards and the MTV Video Music Awards.

In other words, unloading is basically all Beyoncé has been doing.

Perhaps that explains why Wednesday’s concert — one of the last few dates on the singer’s tour — ran slightly cooler than the earlier gig, with not as much of the raw fury that seemed to electrify the Pasadena sky. Or maybe it was simply the dulling effect that repetition can have on even the most inspired performer.

Either way, the grungy “Don’t Hurt Yourself” delivered a softer wallop (even if Beyoncé had perfected the choreographed pimp stroll she does to begin the song), while “Sorry” lacked its old attitude.

During “Hold Up,” the singer handed her microphone to an excited fan near the stage to take the song’s most pointed line, about whether it’s worse to look jealous or crazy. Then she widened her eyes in mock terror, as though she’d been frightened by the fan’s intensity.

That role reversal seemed significant. But it also emphasized an idea that may have replaced anger as the guiding force of Beyoncé’s tour (at least for Beyoncé): the value of community.

Part of the singer’s genius has always been the way she makes her followers feel like participants in her decision-making process; she’s a queen whose royal court is open to all.

At Dodger Stadium, Beyoncé was working especially hard to strengthen that bond, as when she paused the music to thank her fans for their loyalty and when she led the crowd in an impressive a cappella rendition of “Love on Top” complete with the song’s tricky key changes.

“Did you hear yourselves?” she asked with what sounded like real wonder.

Less indignation meant too that there was space in the show for different emotions, including the goofiness that Beyoncé appeared more in touch with here. A deeply serious artist like her is better off for still knowing how to do “Bootylicious.”

That said, Beyoncé’s righteous rage hasn’t entirely subsided.

Her and Jay Z’s relationship may have healed — something she suggested when she identified “All Night” as her favorite song on “Lemonade” — but other wounds have only deepened since the spring.

Near the end of Wednesday’s show, the singer blazed through “Freedom,” a ferocious soul-rock jam that invokes borders and riots and police and chains — the raw materials, basically, of our endless summer of discontent.

And though Beyoncé and her dancers were splashing in a pool of water as they performed it, they didn’t look soothed at all.

Twitter: @mikaelwood

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