The documentary for Rihanna’s November 2012 777 tour aired today on Fox. Dozens of journalists and contest-winning fans pack into a 777 airliner to accompany Rihanna on the 7 day, 7 city, 7 concert around-the-world tour.
Not a bad way to promote her 7th album: Unapologetic.
The group hop to Mexico City, Toronto, Stockholm, Paris, Berlin, and London, before the final show in New York.
A snippet from each show includes performances of hits like Phresh Off the Runway, Umbrella, Stay, and Diamond. Rihanna says in the documentary, “I really love making music. I enjoy it.”
Though she is quick not to box herself into a narrow genre: pop, rock, or hip-hop. Before she started singing professionally, she hardly knew such labels for music existed. To her, it’s about “who you are and how comfortable you are with being that.”
There’s not much insight into the behind-the-scenes aspects of the concert, but there are lots of pumped fans. One shows off the freshly tattooed “R” on her neck.
Throughout Rihanna’s fashion strikes a note of creativity.
She’s styled in a leopard bra, sparkling 10 ringed fingers, gold-rimmed microphone, clunky gold Chanel chain, and baggy T-shirt dresses.
Some faces appearing in the documentary are Unband bass player Mike Ruffino, Necole Bitchie of the eponymous gossip blog, and Jay Brown of Roc Nation, singer Kylie Minogue, fashion designer Stella McCartney, and Australian DJ Tim Dormer, who memorably streaked down the aisles of the plane.
As a promotional item, the tour was a huge success. Unapologetic debuted at no. 1 on Billboard’s album charts and has sold close to a million copies.
But for the journalists traveling with Rihanna, after week of writing blog posts, filming on video and phone cameras, and operating on little sleep, glamor soon gave way to exhaustion.
They left the nonstop concert tour with less than thrilled expressions. They were upset to not get any dirt on Rihanna and that she spent little time hanging out with them on the plane.
In her defense, Rihanna said:
“I had to preserve my health. Normally, I’d be back here popping bottles with y’all… I had to preserve my voice. I was worried about my body more than partying on the plane, so I had to just sleep whenever I could.”
