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A sexy, unpolished mishmashREVIEW: Mariah Carey’s tour kiekoff show is heavy on glitz, low on artistry.By BEN WENERThe Orange County RegisterIt was a moment that everyone who was there will be talking about for years (OK, maybe just months, or even weeks) to come: Did Mariah really cry? Not just whimper on cue but truly well up and purge some intense emotion?Or was it all just an act?Whatever the truth, it was a weird moment, to be sure.Mariah Carey’s sold-out show Thursday night at Staples Center, the American kiekoff to the singer’s first tour in eight years and one of only nine U.S. dates she is expected to play, was nearing conclusion.The diva was already on her sixth costume change, having gone from trampy club-goer in torn jeans to catfighting boxer (yes, boxer) to pageant queen in a cling wrap gown and cheesy tiara to bedtime kitten in pajama shorts cut so high her rear hung out, then back to trampy club-goer, this time poured into a pair of Jordaches and stuffed into 6-inch heels.The point: By now, it was clear that her show was more hollow fashion show than proper performance - bad Vegas revue vs. classic concert Oh, she’d try to wail, all right, try to hit those dog-whistle notes that so impress fans, even though such stratagems rarely fit her songs. But the more she tried, the worse she sounded. Her vocal chemistry: nine parts air, one part squeak.But then, seemingly out erf nowhere, she emerged like the Mariah critics keep praying will someday consume her -transcendent, finally wearing a flattering, elegant dress, belting with the power and range that she’s capable of and with out bombast or histrionics Her immense talent, something she only occasionally knows how to control, was shining through blindinglyShe curled up on a plush, oversized sofa chair, tiny flowers in her hand, and proceeded to roar through “PetalsThen came the quivering chin.Then the pursed lips.Then the misty eyesAnd then Niagara Falls»was perfect melodrama, and the crowd ate it up.But don’t be so sure it was genuine. To be fair, maybe it was Maybe Mariah recalled some broken-family memory or felt some unexpected twin-geof sorrow over the Tommy Mottola years, now that she was back in the industry’s hometown. That would have made sense, given how much oomph and dazzle she delivered on the next tune, the bittersweet, aint-no-stop-ping-me-now anthem “Can’t Take That Away ”Still to these eyes it was just one more set-up, one more scam - and Manah's aren’t that dever If Cher’s arena spectacle is the extreme of gaudiness on the diva scale and TLC’sunpolished, often unprofessional clumsy, scatterbrained.Her 18-song, two-hour show may have been loaded with every1 gimmick in the book, from pre-show videos to elaborate stage sets to a chorus of topnotch dancers in hip costumes to unexpected guests (like rapper Krayzie Bone appearing for a supposedly unrehearsed “Pure Imagination) That aside, Manah’s ev ent had no pacing or timing or rhythm It was merely a mishmash with no meaning Not that the crowd cared, and that’s just the problem. Mesmerized celebrity watchers (and Manah’s travails are admittedly hard to ignore) love to imagine that stars like her not only have complicated pn-e lives hut overly sci ‘to struggle to stay ahead and that the music media are out to destroy her Hence, they relish every No. 1 single she scores, and at this point she’s had 14, an astonishing amount bested only by Elvis and the Beatles She begins the millennium as the biggest-selling female artist erf the past decadeBut when such pop-culture royalty treat their adulation so flippantly, complaints must be lodgedLook, most people paid $8S-pius for this, and then $30 for a T-shirt And though they' seemed strangely content to have Mariah wander the stage aimlessly between songs, hit innumerable flat notes and sing some songs entirely off key, toss out dramaticMariah Carey► When: Thursday night► Where: Staples Center, Los AngelesRose McGowan-ish alterego Bianca) without delivering much of a payoff, and insist that her people bring her champagne so she can toast her return to the States, rather than concentrate on crafting a memorable show - well, it’s just plain wrong.On the one hand, that informality was certainly refreshing. No master-planned choreography. Just Mariah raised by hydraulics to the stage to calmly say, What’s up, LA.?” then groove through a smattering of those famous No. l’s.And, hey, you got “Emotion.” You got “Dreamlover” and “Fantasy” and all the other songs that steal from the Tom Tom Club’s “Genius of Love,” all with the slick backing of her nine-piece band, including the smooth Jackie Wilson moves of vocalist Trey Lorenz. You got earnest ballads like My All” and “Close My Eyes,” repleteofthethethewith that lousiest arena-show cliches, baby-photo montage on video monolith draping rear of the stage But if Mariah was really aiming for music first, glitz second, she would have ditched the hammy routines, balanced out the hits with her more meaningful material (where was “Butterfly, for instance, and why Against All Odds” as a cover and not Prince’s The Beautiful Ones”?) and proved that after all this time away from the road she’s an artist before all else. Crack that veneer, in other words, and show the real Mariah Surely most of her fans Thursday night thought she did when she broke down during “Petals And no matter what really happened, those tears hit home the way Sinead’s did in the “Nothing Compares 2 U” video; even if you didn’t empathize, even if you thought she was the biggest phony in all of Hollywood, you couldn’t take your eyes off her So maybe she’s a genius showstopper after all Funny, though, how it seems she’s still playing out someone else’s idea of what a diva should be - and still squandering those amaz ing gifts she’s been given.The Orange County Register I Sunday, March IS, 2000
Newspaper Details
Santa Ana Orange County Register Sunday
Santa Ana, California, US
Sun, Mar 19, 2000
Page 151
Full Page
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CA 24 Dec 2023
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