Britney Spears premieres her 'Circus' spectacular at the New Orleans Arena
Posted by Keith Spera, Music writer, The Times-Picayune March 04, 2009 2:47AM
Categories: Living: Arts and Entertainment, Reviews, Top News
Britney Spears opened her "Circus" comeback tour at a full New Orleans Arena on Tuesday with the entire pop culture world watching. Which Britney would show up -- the disaster from the 2007 MTV Video Music Awards, or the golden Pop Princess, restored to her throne?
She came closer to the latter. For 90 minutes, Britney Spears was the perpetual motion machine at the center of a lavish, if somewhat impersonal, multi-media presentation. Across four themed segments plus an encore, she appeared healthy, robust and happy to be back on tour after a five year break filled with enough drama to last a lifetime.
First up at Tuesday's New Orleans concert were the five singers/dancers of the Pussycat Dolls. They delivered a generic pep rally opening set of prancing and preening. A fanfare worthy of the Trans Siberian Orchestra accompanied a 15 minute display of juggling, gymnastics and unicycle riding by the Big Apple Circus.
Via video, celebrity blogger Perez Hilton appeared in Elizabeth-ian drag to introduce the lady of the evening. Spears, as a sexy ringmaster with a whip, descended from the rafters in, appropriately enough, a gilded cage. The overwhelmingly female audience erupted
Her opening song, "Circus," served as a statement of purpose: "There's only two types of people in the world/The ones that entertain, and the ones that observe/Well, baby, I'm a put on a show kind of girl."
To that end, aerialists, acrobats, martial artists and a magician all joined in. Trap doors, elevating platforms, and vents that spewed fog and flames transformed the three-ring, in-the-round stage into another actor in the drama.
Whenever Britney was on stage -- she often ducked out to swap revealing costumes -- she was in constant motion. She interacted with dancers and props in a seamlessly choreographed presentation that left little room for error. She consistently hit her marks; her only noticeable miscue was knocking off her fedora during "Get Naked."
During "Piece of Me," she cavorted within, atop and alongside a cage. For "Me Against the Music," she sashayed in a sumptuous, Bollywood-style ensemble. Against the club pulse of "Get Naked," she posed in an oversize picture frame as dancers ogled her -- a play on the media's Britney Spears obsession.
Her dancing was not as aerobic as in the past, but she held her own. In "Radar," she fronted 11 dancers, perfectly in step. For "Do Something," she wore a metallic gold swimsuit and wielded a spark-spewing angle grinder. In the final "Womanizer," she donned the uniform of a sexy cop
Sexy and powerful were recurring themes. In "Boys," she romped with a troupe of B-boys on bicycles, stealing one's cap and running a hand down his shirt. All eight surrounded her and dropped trou, revealing their pink underwear. She commanded them to give her 10 push-ups as penance. "I don't know what you been told," she shouted in the cadence of a drill sergeant, "this mama is in control!"
Except when magician Edward Alonzo orchestrated his illusions. In the show's "House of Fun" segment, he "dissected" Britney in a box and made her vanish from a center stage cage only to reappear, seconds later and in a different outfit, on a side stage.
The "Freakshow/Peepshow" segment opened with a video of a carnival mask orgy a la "Eyes Wide Shut," set to a sinister, Marilyn Manson-esque romp through "Sweet Dreams Are Made of This." Spears wore a flesh-colored body suit with black tassels on her breasts. In the erotically charged "Touch of My Hand," a bondaged dancer descended horizontally from the rafters, wrapped his arms and legs around Spears, and hoisted her up.
The set list favored recent albums and omitted "Oops I Did It Again" entirely. Her breakthrough hit, "Baby One More Time," existed as a bass-heavy remix. Musicians spent most of the show out of sight. Stashed next to the stage, they replicated the crisp beats and club sheen of Britney's singles.
How many did she actually sing? Probably not many; backing tapes and vocalists likely carried much of the load. For better or worse, many fans do not expect her to sing live. It's all about the spectacle, of which there was plenty.
So much so that Spears' considerable, potentially charming personality was largely squeezed out. She did not address the audience -- a partisan, hometown audience at that -- until she said goodbye. The Kentwood native could not muster even a perfunctory "Hello" or "How ya'll doing, New Orleans?" along the way.
As the Circus tour progresses, perhaps she'll loosen up. With so much at stake, and so much to prove, on the tour's first night, she was fully focused on executing the complex concert. And execute she did. For the ballad "Everytime," she perched on the curved handle of a giant umbrella 10 feet above the stage and sang, "Everytime I try to fly, I fall." Not on this night.
Complete set list from the opening night of Britney Spears' "Circus" tour at the New Orleans Arena:
"Circus" (funky remix)
"Piece of Me"
"Radar"
"Ooh Ooh Baby" / "Hot as Ice"
"Boys"
"If U Seek Amy"
"Me Against the Music" (Bollywood)
"Everytime"/ "I'm Scared"
"Freakshow"
"Get Naked"
"Breathe on Me" / "Touch of My Hand"
"Do Something"
"I'm a Slave 4 U"
"Toxic"
"Baby One More Time" (remix)
Encore:
"Womanizer" (extended remix)
There's some pictures here:
blog.nola.com/keithspera/2009/03/britney_spears_unveiled_her_ci.html