| OK so I saw the tour on TV last week and I have to say it's not as big and as grand as I expected. Controversial, sure, entertaining, not really. That’s not to say I didn’t enjoy it, but it was certainly less what her previous tours have been.
Basically if you saw Janet Jackson Velvet Rope tour or Madonna’s tour from In Bed With Madonna, then you have seen Britney’s show. Not that I am complaining I enjoyed both the Velvet Rope and Madonna’s tour, and I guess it would be getting hard to come up with ideas that SOMEONE hasn’t tried before, but …..
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There is a weird introduction, footage to make you think you are in a Hotel, the Onyx Hotel. You are now checking in is the theme, however it also tells you that once you check in you can never leave and that the stay at Onyx will be fantastic. The Onyx Hotel is a place where “all your wildest dreams come true” and other such b-s.
There is a very fat weird looking man who dresses in a shiny purple suit who appears to some sort of concierge for the Onyx Hotel. While I am all for theatrics, this guy is taking it a bit too far, you will see why further on in my “review”. This concierge talks a bit about the Hotel and then we start the concert.
First thing first though. She mimes, well it sounds like it, that might just have been for the show that was being taped for television, so I am not judging, well I am, but she should sing live especially as part of a World Tour. I know you get tired, but so does everyone lese who tours and they still sing live. But once again, it might have just been for TV, she may have actually sang live but they dubbed it or something. I don’t know.
Starting off with Toxic, she prances around in a black cat suit for a bit on top of what I think is supposed to be a giant luggage rack, you know the gold things the porters wheel your stuff around on. Her dancing at first is boring, static and predictable, if you’ve seen Britney perform once, you seen her perform a thousand times. So the dancing and basically the whole performance of Toxic was what you would’ve seen on the “In The Zone” review special, when she performed it on TRL or CD:UK or TOTP or anywhere else.
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Once again, that’s not to say it was not good, the girl’s got game and she can move, but if you are looking for a Britney you’ve never seen before, then this was not the place to go. However, I will say that her dancers are a different bunch to last time and they have a really good energy and vibe with Britney, they all look as if they are genuinely enjoying themselves, and you can’t tell this is the gazzilionth time they have performed together.
Moving on: She sang a couple of older songs afterwards, I’m A Slave to You, Boys and Overprotected, I think (I am working from memory only). There was an interlude where the fat purple concierge guy harassed the audience for being ugly, fat and having bad hair, which I totally did not get. I don’t know if it was a real audience member or a stand in on the staff of the tour, but whatever it was, it was weird. Some sameness to the older songs, but slight “remixes” so it was not boring but still gave fans the “old stuff”.
Time for a costume change so they set up again with the pre-made videos to entertain the audiences while she changes in a flash. This was Britney and two friends coming out of a club when Britney sees a mysterious woman pop out of thin air. Of course Britney does what we all would do when see a mysterious woman and she follows her down some dark skanky alleys. The mysterious woman does some weird magical gesture in the air and the wall of the alley turns into the door of an old-style cabaret club and she ask Britney if she wants to go in. Britney of course follows.
Baby One More Time was done as per the In The Zone special, ala cabaret style, which I actually quite like, but as above, disappointed to not see new stuff, same set up, same song, same everything about this performance, except her outfit, which was actually more revealing.
She did Oops in a similar cabaret style, but I was not as convinced as I was with Baby One More time. It seemed she had done this song in cabaret style just so that she did not have to do a costume change from having done the One More Time. It was good, but not as good as Baby One More Time.
The she did a meet and greet with the band and I was again disappointed by the way Britney moves. I know she used to be more nimble than she is now, I am sure of it. She had the drum guy do a sort of Latin style beat and her and two dancers started shaking their booties and it was almost as if they had to restrain themselves from out-dancing Britney.
I have heard rumours that she is not as fit as she used to be and there were moments when you could hear her heavy breathing in between songs, even after Toxic when she had a bit of a chat with the audience she seemed out of breath and that was the first song.
So everyone goes for another costume change and this time the pre-made Video is of Britney walking in a park, aww, pretty, butterflies, bird noises and the piano music from Everytime playing softly in the back ground. The Britney in the video walks around the garden a bit more until she finds a piano covered in leaves and flowers and she sits down.
Cut back to the stage, Britney, looking as she did in the pre-made video, sitting at the piano, still covered in flowers and leaves. She starts of by saying the usual stuff that singers say when they change from fast paced dance numbers to slower love songs and then she goes on to say some really weird stuff about how her life is a roller coaster and all that. I have posted the quote somewhere and will find it and insert it. It’s a bit weird and really does make you wonder if she’s having a bit of a break down.
So she starts playing the piano and she sings a bit of Everytime. The first few sentences at least you can barely make out what she is saying, she sounded tired and even old. But once she steps away from the piano and starts to sing properly, her voice takes off on it’s own and she sound right again. I think Everytime was the only song she sang entirely live.
Then she sang another song off In The Zone, The Hook Up, which is a very Beyonce & Sean Paul - Baby Boy style sound and the dancing was blatantly copying Beyonce, but not as good. Honestly Britney has lost something in the dance department, she still has her flexibility, I mean she did the splits on call a few times and that is actually hard to do it that fast, but she just can’t shake it.
At one point in time Britney goes to get changed (again) and they shows the dancers all writhing against each other all wearing skin coloured body suits so it looks like their nude. I don’t get it, it doesn’t seem to fit in with the rest of the show at the time, it just seems like some pointless nudity for shock value I guess.
Touch of My Hand was a revelation, I quite like the song, but think it is not really necessary to sing about masturbation. I had the view when I was on the tATu band-wagon and I haven’t changed my mind now. She starts off with another pre-made video as if she is in the Onyx Hotel, reading in bed and the security guards wire a cable to the monitors from a secret monitor in her bedroom, which she discovers as she is flicking channels in her TV.
She figures out about the camera, locates it, draws herself a bath and then takes off her bathrobe to the howling delight of the security guards watching her on the CCTV monitor, then it cuts to the show and Britney is sitting wearing a bathrobe in a “bathroom” on set.
She sings, sort of rubbing herself, nothing to bad, you see her knee, but then she gets up and takes her robe off to reveal a skin coloured sequined cat suit similar to that worn in the Toxic video. She rubs herself some more and then gets in to the “bath” and rubs herself some more.
The dancers however are what really made this song controversial, they writhe about in various states of undress on four or five large beds scattered around the stage and some of the moves they do are quite indecent. One dancer starts off playing the role of the security guard watching on the monitors and by the end of the song he is in his underwear grinding his genitals up against a Television. It’s all a bit weird.
Breathe on Me, one of the more controversial songs/ performances. And Sorry to say I have not seen it. Channels Ten’s answer to the controversy was to simply not show that section of the concert on TV. I am trying to get a download of it, but will have to update when I have seen it. I can say she performed the song in only a pink bra and knickers and it did involve a guy on a bed, but that is all I know from a half a second scene in the credits.
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Outrageous is the next song and I have always quite liked this. I think it is a real “Britney-song” as in it suits her, it seems to be real and actually about her and not just pop-trash. She turns up in the bra and undies form Breathe on Me but with a white trench coat over the top (as lyrics say – trench coat and my underwear). I liked the dancing, the energy, Britney seemed to be having a great time. I thought this song was one of the best bits of the whole concert.
Time for another costume change, another interlude with the fat purple concierge who has this time managed to get himself drunk. HE stumbles about the stage to “Three-Stooges” type music and dumb-ass sound effects until he gets to the centre and then he mimes the words to start (I Got That) Boom, Boom, which sounds weird because he is a fat white guy and the guys who sing (rap?) with Britney on Boom, Boom are skinny black guys (Ying Yang Twins).
The outfit is a bit weird, she looks like she forgot her belt but I guess it’s all part of the show. At one point in time, it gets weird, she starts to take a drink which I can only assume is part of some part of the show that they have cut out for the TV special, because one of her dancers comes running up to Britney and says “We’re not doing it” and Britney responds “Oh, we’re not doing it? Oops” and throws the cup of water into the audience and then carries on as if nothing happened. I have no idea either.
She finishes the song and says good bye to the audience with some dancing and stuff. Then she goes off stage, she runs back on and thanks them again and one of dancers comes on and “drags” Britney back off-stage again. Now this bit I found really odd:
Britney starts going on about how she can’t leave yet, she hasn’t sung “Sometimes” and starts singing it really, out of tune, off key and just revoltingly. She bumps into someone while running off-stage and then says “Stuff it, I never liked that song anyway”. I found that odd, why start singing it? Why sing it wrong? Why say you don’t like it? I just don’t get it.
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Then you see some people starting to leave the stadium (to get ahead of the traffic I guess) but most are clapping and screaming and chanting for Britney, the screens on the stage light up and it starts ticking and they make out as if the Onyz Hotel computer system in crashing. There is lots of noise and it drags out for ages, I assume this must be one hell of a long costume change, I can’t see any other reason for it, I found it just annoying.
Me Against the Music, was what you have seen on In The Zone, Mad TV, Letterman, whatever, whenever you have seen her. Except this time it was done in red clothes and a bit longer as it was the encore performance. Nothing special (again).
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Overall I give the show 8/10. I am a fan, so maybe a higher score than other would’ve given, and keep in mind I didn’t see the whole thing and it was only on TV, not live.
Well that’s about all I can remember now. Hope you liked my review.  | |
