As much as we’d rather be stranded on Rihanna’s jet, zipping around the world with 150 other cranky journalists, we’ll settle for watching a live concert in the comfort of a seat with more than 32 inches of legroom.
In celebration of her seventh studio album, #UNAPOLOGETIC, Rihanna is live-streaming the London concert from her tour on Facebook and YouTube this Monday starting at 5:00pm ET. Fans in the United States can watch it on Jay-Z’s YouTube channel while users outside of America can access it on British retailer River Island’s Facebook page.
The London leg is part of Rihanna’s whirlwind 777 Tour, which trapped 250 writers, musicians, and lucky contest winners in a Boeing 777 to follow her around to seven countries and gawk at seven shows in seven days. That could sound heavenly to some (me!) or like a diabolical mindgame crafted by Rihanna to see which passenger jumps out of the plane first.
Recent posts from those onboard of the plane have been particularly grim, with journalists lashing out at the Barbadian singer for having little interaction with the press corps. On Sunday night, a post on Fuse’s website described the dire scene of mutiny and chaos as journalists yelled for Rihanna to come out of hiding and play with the press.
“Before takeoff, select journalists started yelling randomly for Rihanna to come out, while others began jovially making fun of Ri’s planned ad-libs heard during each of her shows. The chorus grew, as chants of “Just one quote!,” “Save our jobs!” and “I need a headline!” grew louder and more intense,” wrote Fuse’s Jason Newman.
An Australian journalist so fed-up with the lack of stories from the tour stripped and pranced around the plane in an attempt to make news. The streaker was captured on a YouTube video dashing around the jet to applause.
The most-tweeted about tour (#777Tour has 10,000 mentions in the past week), has even prompted a parody account, @RihannaPlane, to take off, mocking the week-long press experiment.
“How about this: y’all pass around the collection plate. If l see 5k cash and some unopened D’usse, I’ll have us at LaGuardia in 45 minutes,” tweeted @RihannaPlane Sunday night, which to some, sounds like a fair price to end this nightmare.
Photo via Rihanna/Hashgram