Waiting for the West Coast feed of awards shows blows, but Beyoncé’s performance at last night’s 2011 Billboard Music Awards — she was on hand to receive the Billboard Millennium Award — more than made up for the delay.

I think the world can agree that Beyoncé’s had much better singles than “Run The World (Girls),” the first taste of her forthcoming album 4 (out June 28), but damn if the Destiny’s Child alum doesn’t know how to deliver a worthy spectacle. This was super-sized even by her standards, and exponentially more entertaining and better executed than the song’s big-budget video that premiered last week. The interactive graphic video bit in the first half of the Billboard performance is brilliantly well done, only to be topped by a multiplying army of virtual Bs, only to be topped by 100 backup dancers stepping in sync.

After last night’s Billboard Awards performance, I don’t like “Run The World (Girls)” a little less today. And thanks to a magnificently epic moment like the one Beyoncé had (not forgetting all the prep, sweat, and committment that went into delivering it), Britney Spears’ pair of appearances at the same show were only magnified as a huge nothing bonk.

UPDATE: A bit of controversy erupted after word spread hat Beyoncé’s performance was remarkably similar to a 2010 performance by Italian pop singer Lorella Cuccerini. Indeed, Beyoncé says she was directly influenced to craft something similar after seeing a clip of what Cuccerini and her team had done.

Purchase Beyoncé – “Run The World (Girls)” via iTunes, Run The World (Girls) (Single Version)Amazon MP3.