You can love your country and still want a revolution. You can love where you come from even when people tell you that you don’t belong. These are the central tenets of Beyoncé’s groundbreaking Cowboy Carter Tour. It’s more than just a country music throwdown. It’s also putting our country under the microscope, examining what it means to be American, and exercising one of the most democratic processes we have: protesting it all.

As Night 1 of the tour’s Chicago residency kicked off Thursday at Soldier Field, it arrived under the auspices of a good old-fashioned storm. After an epic two-hour rain delay had scores of rhinestone- and fringe-bedazzled fans sheltering in place, dodging puddles and losing a cowboy hat or two with the high winds, the production finally commenced at 10:15, offering a complex, layered think piece worth every minute of the wait.

Beyoncé performs Thursday night at Soldier Field.

“Thank you guys for your patience through the weather. Thank you for all of your love, even throughout the storm,” Beyoncé shared, eliciting an uproarious reaction from 60,000 euphoric fans whose energy helped electrify the stadium until the 1 a.m. end of show.

“You all are here, I am here, and we’re gonna have us a good ol’ time.”

As the city of Chicago loosened its strict 11 p.m. concert curfew and gave the singer the green light to play into the wee hours, Beyoncé swiftly reclaimed the time and delivered the full extent of the show, performing all 40 songs on the tour’s set list, donning all eight costumes and engaging her exemplary nine-piece band (plus backup vocalists) and nearly two dozen dancers in an exhilarating performance.

That included her 13-year-old daughter Blue Ivy Carter, who had a starring role in this production, often commanding the audience’s full attention with her well-oiled moves that hint at the power of the next generation in the Carter family’s music dynasty. Her sister Rumi also had a small part in the emotional number, “Protector,” where Beyoncé sat entwined with her daughters, while, behind them, a tower of female dancers in gold gave airs of female divinity and the mother incarnate. All that was missing was Tina Knowles, though she may have been prepping for her “Matriarch” book talk Friday night at the Athenaeum Theatre (on the tour’s day off).

Beyoncé performs high above the sold-out crowd on Thursday night at Soldier Field.

The Cowboy Carter and the Rodeo Chitlin’ Circuit Tour is, of course, a rapt celebration of Beyoncé’s award-winning eighth studio album of the same name and a continuation of her 2022 “Renaissance” album and 2023 tour (another one with a Soldier Field rain delay) . Both highly conceptual in nature, the albums are both discourses in music history and its association with cultural mores.

While “Renaissance” was centered on disco and house music and the Black queer community, “Cowboy Carter” is Beyoncé “takin’ up space” in the country genre by exploring and expanding on its potential and giving credit (where few else have) to the Black creators who were foundational. People like Linda Martell, a pioneer in country music and a regular of the Chitlin’ Circuit, a network of venues for Black performers during segregation. As a full-circle effort, Beyoncé also spotlights up-and-coming Black country artists like Brittney Spencer and Shaboozey on the album, laying a stake in the genre’s future.

Beyoncé takes in the moment during the opening night of her Chicago tour stop on Thursday at Soldier Field. The superstar returns for concerts on Saturday and Sunday.

Broken up into eight acts, with stunning avant-garde short films during each break, the Cowboy Carter spectacular is a multidisciplinary masterwork in the same way the album’s music reveals itself to be. For the live take, the band effortlessly mixed in zydeco and boogie on “Ya Ya,” hip-hop and R&B on “Tyrant” and “Spaghetti,” bluegrass on “Alligator Tears,” folk on “Just for Fun,” and even opera on “Daughter.” In addition to the new tracks, Bey also dug out her standards, including “Crazy in Love” and “Irreplaceable.”

There are plenty of whimsical and iconographic moments in the nearly three-hour show: Bey floating around the stadium on a levitating horseshoe, and later, taking a ride in a “flying” red Cadillac while holding an American flag; riding a mechanical bull on “Tyrant,” then donning gold disco chaps and boots emblazoned with Nancy Sinatra’s “for walking” creed; and an elaborate stage shaped into a five-point star with sharp cutaways dotted with neon saloon signs and Texas Route 66 markers in an homage to her upbringing in Houston.

The stage is set for Beyoncé on Thursday night at Soldier Field.

Yet it’s the opening act that is the tour’s most fascinating and profound, continuing Beyoncé’s ability to break the glass ceiling of what is considered entertainment and educating in the process. As the opening seamlessly wove through the album’s magnum opus “American Requiem” to a cover of the Beatles’ civil rights anthem “Blackbird” (dedicated to “all the beautiful blackbirds that opened the door to do what I love”) to an arena-worthy take on the “Star-Spangled Banner” parlayed into “Freedom,” it was one of the most patriotic displays seen in a tour of this magnitude. It was Beyoncé, like the predecessors she pays tribute to, finding the beauty in ugly times and reminding us that we do still live in the home of the brave.

Beyoncé returns to Soldier Field for shows Saturday and Sunday nights.

SET LIST