No doubt the ushers and bouncers were thrilled. On Friday night, Madison Square Garden was packed with well-behaved fans. They didn’t make a scene by screaming too loud. Many of them declined to dance in their seats, let alone in the aisles. And for the most part, they saved their applause for after each song, instead of rudely cheering all the way through.
Good news for the men and women with the flashlights, then. And not-as-good news for Christina Aguilera, the teen-pop star turned, well, grown-up teen-pop star. Friday’s concert was the New York installment of her “Back to Basics” tour, which is largely devoted to songs from her double-disc 2006 album, “Back to Basics” (RCA/Sony BMG). She’s a bold performer with a huge voice and an unshakable faith in her own instincts. And that last fact probably helps explain Friday night’s rather disappointing show.
It was a spectacle, to be sure. There were stilts and acrobats, sharp musicians and sharper dancers, costume changes on top of costume changes. And all night, Ms. Aguilera explored her new fascination with older styles: there was a swinging, faux-reggae remake of “What a Girl Wants,” one of her earliest hits; for “Candyman,” the Andrews Sisters pastiche that is her current single, she staged what looked like a World War II-era U.S.O. show. (With more sequins and shorter shorts, of course.)
The implicit message of “Back to Basics,” the album and the tour, is that Ms. Aguilera has moved beyond the teen-pop fluff that made her a star. She listens to serious music now (in “Back in the Day,” near the start of her set, she name-checked Etta James, John Coltrane and many others), because she’s a serious singer.
At times, that notion pushes her to experiment in smart and unexpected ways: “Understand,” from the CD, coasts along on a snippet of “Nearer to You,” a 1967 R&B single sung by Betty Harris and written by Allen Toussaint; the hit “Ain’t No Other Man,” produced by DJ Premier, has a sped-up horn blast that sounds sharper and livelier on record than it did on Friday. And she sung a typically rousing version of “Hurt,” a huge ballad from the new album, although there was a glitch near the beginning. (As she sang the first phrase, you could hear another voice echoing her; it could have been an errant vocal effect, a misguided back-up singer or — horrors! — a miscued backing track.)
But none of that explains why paying fans should have to spend precious minutes watching a video of the singer writhing in her undergarments while murmuring the pseudo-bluesy ballad “Trouble.” (To be clear: there’s nothing wrong with her writhing or her undergarments, but there is something wrong with “Trouble.”) And none of that redeems “Nasty Naughty Boy,” an interminable exercise in heavy breathing, during which a male fan was lashed to a bullseye, like a knife-thrower’s assistant. Ms. Aguilera wielded a whip, though she declined to use it; surely there were plenty of people in the crowd who love her enough to take a real lashing.
Given all this foolishness, it’s even more puzzling that Ms. Aguilera seems faintly (or not-so-faintly) embarrassed by the teen-pop that got her here. Her sublime breakthrough single, “Genie in a Bottle,” was heard only as part of a sampled montage during a video version of “Thank You,” a tribute to fans that generously allows fans to pay tribute to the star. (There were taped testimonials from people swearing Ms. Aguilera changed their lives.)
“Back to Basics,” the album, hasn’t been a huge success: according to Nielsen SoundScan, it has sold about 1.4 million copies so far. That’s a bit more than the self-titled debut album from Danity Kane, the night’s opening act, which has sold about 900,000 copies. (At the end of their set, the members were presented with platinum plaques, for shipping a million CDs to shops.) And that’s a lot less than the debut album from the Pussycat Dolls, who performed after Danity Kane; “PCD” (A&M/Universal) has sold about 2.6 million copies.
But then, it’s hard to watch either Danity Kane or the Pussycat Dolls without thinking about “Stripped,” Ms. Aguilera’s much-mocked 2002 album, which now seems eerily prescient. At the time, her panties-and-panting video for “Dirrty” made her a pop laughingstock; now it’s clear that “Dirrty” helped usher in the current era of strip-club-savvy female pop stars. The women of Danity Kane and the Pussycat Dolls have won themselves young female fans by embracing dirrt; in fact, some of their dance moves seemed to come straight from that infamous video.
On Friday, it was clear that the blockbuster hits from “Stripped” still work. The crowd sang along with a fierce — and blessedly un-jazzed-up — version of “Fighter” from that album. And if you really want to stop a show properly, few songs will get the job done better than “Beautiful,” which winningly conflates the sturdy self-regard of a pop star with the fragile self-confidence of an outcast. “I am beautiful in every single way,” Ms. Aguilera sang, and it sounded convincing because so many other people were singing, too.
Kelefa Sanneh
Back to Basics Tour Dates
March 2007
28 – Montreal, Quebec – Bell Centre
30 – Boston, MA – TD Banknorth Garden
April 2007
2 – Atlantic City, NJ – Atlantic City Boardwalk Hall
5 – Washington, D.C. – Verizon Center
7 – East Rutherford, NJ – Continental Airlines
9 – Uniondale, NY – Nassau Coliseum
11 – Auburn Hills, MI – The Palace of Auburn Hills
13 – Columbus, OH – Nationwide Arena
14 – Cleveland, OH – Wolstein Center
20 – Pittsburgh, PA – Mellon Arena
21 – Milwaukee, WI – Bradley Center
24 – Chicago, IL – Allstate Arena
25 – Manchester, NH – Verizon Wireless Arena
27 – Providence, RI – Dunkin’ Donuts Center
28 – Uncasville, CT – Mohegan Sun Casino
May 2007
1 – Baltimore, MD – 1st Mariner Arena
2 – Duluth, GA – The Arena at Gwinnett Center
4 – Tampa, FL – St. Pete Times Forum
5 – Fort Lauderdale, FL – Bank Atlantic Center
Technorati Tags: Christina+Aguilera+Concert+Review, Christina+Aguilera+Concert+Reviews,
Leave a comment
No comments yet.
Rock Concert News 
Leave a comment