BEYONCÉ is bigger and better than any other solo female artist in the game right now.

Latin belter Shakira may have hips that don’t lie, but her charms haven’t caught the eyes of the beauty companies that pay Beyoncé millions to promote products black girls don’t even use.

Big-voiced Christina may well be a fighter, but she hasn’t had a world No.1 single since 2002.A few years back the young ladies of Tokyo’s most fashionable shopping section took to over-tanning their faces and dying their hair to look like Beyoncé.

Somehow it seems unlikely the girls of ’Shibuya 109′ would risk their parents’ wrath to ape Britney’s K-Mart meets Betty Ford look.

The Beyoncé Experience tour is the B-Word’s opportunity to show the world the considerable talents that have seen her outshine the biggest names in pop. On Thursday night at the M.E.N. Arena, she grabbed it with both hands, before dancing all over it on powerful legs.

The show opened with a shower of sparks and the brassy wall of sound that is Crazy In Love. Beyoncé, resplendent in silver, stepped, strutted and writhed across the luminous stage like Ike Turner was lurking in the wings.

Innovative

The song featured an excerpt of Gnarls Barkley’s Crazy, setting a precedent for a night of innovative arrangements and displays of rock showmanship from the all-female, all-talent band.

After 15 minutes on stage Beyoncé left it, returning in a bellydancer’s get-up to segue Chaka Demus and Pliers’ Murder She Wrote into Beautiful Liar, her hip-twisting duet with Shakira.

The Arabic thread in Liar’s backing track wove neatly into Naughty Girl, which ended with raucous, call-and-response scatting and showcased Beyoncé’s incredible dancing skills.

One costume change later, this time a shimmering debutante-style dress, and Beyoncé powered out big ballad Dangerously in Love.

The song was a little tainted by an excess of warbling, but nicely followed by a Jill Scott sample, and a pure-voiced, dewy-eyed version of Flaws and All, which in slightly overwrought fashion, ended with an ‘angel’ descending from the rafters.

A Destiny’s Child medley of sex-charged, materialistic ‘girl power’ anthems was lapped up whole by the overwhelmingly young and female crowd, as was Upgrade U and numbers from the film Dreamgirls.

Finally, chart-topper Irreplaceable was given an acoustic makeover before a playful bassist led into the encore, De Ja Vu. At the very end of the night Beyoncé sang ‘Happy B-Day’ to fans and pointed out faces in the crowd, which she claimed were the best in the UK.

The r’n'b beauty had sung and danced for a good two hours, and very well she did too.