In 2011, Beyoncé put out a No. 1 album, shot and released a live DVD, and nearly broke the Internet by announcing her pregnancy, so performing four Memorial Weekend concerts can't even jokingly be considered a comeback. Only three months passed between the birth of her daughter with Jay-Z, Blue Ivy Carter, and Beyoncé's announcement that she'd be returning to the stage at the opening of Atlantic City's lux Revel resort and casino — three years separated her debut solo album Dangerously in Love and its follow-up B'Day. But stakes are so high in diva-dom these days, nobody can afford to take a breather. B dropped last year's 4 in the height of Lady Gaga domination; now the music biz is tethered to Adele's ruptured vocal cord, Britney's serving as a judge rather than facing one, Madonna is starting a world tour, Katy Perry is a divorcee, and Rihanna won't stop patting her crotch on TV.

But the difference between Beyoncé and all those other (legally, for now!) single ladies is black and white, which is exactly the color palate she chose to employ at her Revel shows. Beyoncé is the greatest performer of her generation and she knows it well. Her Revel concerts were more Liza With a Z than MTV — predicated on nothing but the tour de force of its creator. Saturday night's two-hour show featured no gimmicks, no backing tracks, no hard-to-follow narratives, no whipped cream cannons. It was old school Vegas-style Entertainment with a capital E: singing, dancing, and charisma wrapped up in a few sparkly Ralph & Russo outfits.

But right now Beyoncé is owning her brilliance like a boss. The Revel show highlighted how she's become an accomplished multi-instrumentalist — her arsenal includes her powerhouse voice, her toned thighs, her whipping hair, her Vaudevillian eyes, and of course, her wind machine. And now she's become even more adept at playing our emotions, too, eliciting Beatlemania screeches by revealing a mere glimpse of Blue Ivy during a video montage. She's unlocked the secret to balancing her super-human talent with über-humanizing rhetoric like another megastar who only requires one name: Oprah.