The final night of Shakira’s Las Mujeres Ya No Lloran World Tour: World Cup Edition played out like a quasi-religious experience for 15,000 or so ecstatic date-night — and girls-night-out — fans at Jim Whelan Boardwalk Hall in Atlantic City on Saturday.
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And the two-hour, 25-song performance by the irrepressibly dynamic Colombian entertainer who is on the short list of the biggest pop stars in the world came with its own 10 Commandments.
The 10 Commandments of the She-Wolf, that is.
That list of lupine words to live by was counted down as the singer hustled off for what was maybe her 10th costume change of the night — I lost count — after she had completed her pre-encore set.
It followed not one but two official World Cup anthems in “Waka Waka (This Time For Africa)” from 2010 and this year’s “Dai Dai,” a collaboration with Nigerian singer Burna Boy, which they performed together during the halftime show World Cup Final in East Rutherford, N.J., last weekend.
(For those seeking a deeper experience of “Dai Dai” — which is an Italian slang expression meaning “Come on” — a cocktail by that name made of tequila, Sprite and pineapple was available on the concourse for $19 or in a supersized mason jar for $29.)
But back to the She-Wolf. Las Mujeres Ya No Lloran translates from Spanish to English — both languages of which Shakira sang in and used to address the crowd on Saturday — as “women no longer cry.”
The 2024 album that the tour is named for was largely inspired by the end of Shakira’s relationship with Spanish soccer player Gerard Piqué.
And during the South Jersey La Lloran tour date, she repeatedly stressed themes of female solidarity. Early in the evening she wore a metallic She-Wolf breastplate designed by Gaurav Gupta while singing an acoustic “Acróstica,” speaking of emerging post-break up “a little bit wiser, a little bit stronger.”
But that turned out to be only a teaser of the She-Wolf to come.
For the encore, first the commandments were revealed, including “Do not suppress your wild nature,” “Howl, for no one can silence you,” and “Protect and care for your pack above all else.”
Then, a giant inflatable and impressively lifelike wolf named Isabel emerged on stage, as a physical manifestation of the spirit animal of the headlining dynamo, who is 5 feet 2 inches tall.
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Isabel stood approximately 10 times that height, fitting comfortably beneath the 137-foot barrel-vaulted ceiling at the nearly 100-year-old Boardwalk Hall — a great place to see a show, and an intimate one by the standards of Shakira, who usually plays ginormous outdoor stadiums —shooting blue laser lights from her eyes into the crowd.
Meanwhile, Shakira moved about the room in a shimmery body suit with her six-woman dance team. (She also had four male dancers who, among other things, dressed in furry tigers and wore pink shorts to accompany her on “Zoo,” from the 2016 Disney animated movie Zootopia, in which she played the pop star Gazelle. She introduced that song, asking: “Are you ready for some surrealism?“)
And when Shakira works a room, it’s with more intensity than most. The encore included both her 2009 disco hit “She Wolf,” and “BZRP Music Session #53,” her 2023 single with Argentine producer Bizarrap.
With the singer and dancer moving up and down the aisles of Boardwalk Hall, fearlessly pressing the flesh with fans, taking selfies, and in one case actually kissing a baby who, thankfully, was outfitted with giant noise-canceling headphones. When it was all said and done, customized confetti fell from the sky: faux $100 bills, with Shakira’s face on them.
Phew! It’s tiring just to write about how much energy Shakira puts into her show. Over the course of the evening, fronting a five-piece band who seemed to rely on triggering prerecorded parts at many junctures in recreating reggaeton or Afro-pop beats, she played acoustic and electric guitar, and briefly also got behind the drum kit on “Can’t Remember To Forget You.”
And of course, the “Hips Don’t Lie” singer shimmies, shakes, twerks, and gyrates on a level that is unparalleled among aerobic pop performers. As a friend of mine commented online: “As my wife said, she moved parts of her body I didn’t even know existed!”
And indeed, with a runway extending halfway out onto the Boardwalk Hall floor, Shakira had ample opportunity to strut her stuff. At one point there was pole dancing onstage, and also an odd pas de deux with a robot lover.
But while Shakira is certainly sexy, the crowd-pleasing presentation comes across as more wholesome than erotic. Even during the extended belly dancing on her 1998 hit “Ojos Asi” in which the singer — whose father is of Lebanese heritage — celebrated her Arabic roots, she nodded and winked to the audience, keeping the mood more lighthearted and playful than sultry.
That vibe carried through the evening, from when she first appeared in a shiny silver spacesuit that was soon discarded to an interlude when a mermaid iteration of the singer on a giant video screen appeared to pound on the glass of a fish tank in an effort to break through and free herself. Of course, she succeeded, because nothing can stop Shakira.
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