Beyoncé raises the stakes in memorable performance

Beyoncé is taking girl power to the next level.

Her "Mrs. Carter Show World Tour," which stopped at the Izod Center in East Rutherford, N.J., Wednesday and wraps up its current American leg with a three-night stand at Barclays Center in Brooklyn starting Saturday, is all about female triumph from start to finish, from "Run the World (Girls)" to the possible new single "Grown Woman."

With her mighty two-hour spectacle, Beyoncé raises the stakes among her contemporaries, smoothly moving from pop to reggae to hip-hop to disco and back again. With her powerful vocals unaffected by her dancing, Queen B puts all those lip-synchers to shame.

The show's structure is similar to her run at the Revel casino in Atlantic City last year, where she performed after daughter Blue Ivy was born. But the pace is faster and more pointed. Even the interpretive dance breaks between songs further drove home her interests in combining beauty and power.

Even more impressively, Beyoncé made it seem effortless, pulling in Britpop classic "Bittersweet Symphony" into her ballad "If I Were a Boy" and mixing Donna Summer's "Love to Love You Baby" with her hit "Naughty Girl."

Her confidence is addictive, even asking, "Twenty years from now, are y'all gonna say, 'I was at that Beyoncé concert?' " That answer was secure even before she pulled out her niftiest trick of the evening, combining "Single Ladies" with the theme from "The Jeffersons."

Yes, Mrs. Carter was that memorable.

SEE PHOTOSBeyoncé through the years