Music Takes Backseat To Image At Britney Show

The following italicized article is from www.azcentral.com:

In her latest incarnation as pop comeback queen, Britney Spears isn’t performing concerts so much as she is staging a show that is a cross between Cirque du Soleil and burlesque.

The music that played Friday night as Spears strutted around three circular stages at a packed Jobing.com Arena in Glendale was almost an afterthought, a pulsating soundtrack accompanying the visual spectacle that this 27-year-old mother of two still generates.

More than any other tour by Spears, this one, named after the singer’s new “Circus” album, is all about image.

The barrage of camera flashes that was nearly non-stop throughout the singer’s 90-minute set as she emerged in one costume after another and made her way to various contraptions designed to show her off to all corners of the arena bore out the fact that the eye was the key to this show.

Speaking of all corners, it’s hard to imagine how the show must have looked to those sitting near the rafters of the cavernous hockey arena, because Spears had none of the video screens that most big acts use to help those in those seats see the onstage action.

Each song brought another gimmick to put Spears, who looks like she hit the gym hard before this tour, on display.

The star ended up in a wheeled lion’s cage early on after she had peeled off a ringmaster’s getup to reveal a sexy corset-themed outfit as she performed the new CD’s title track and her in-your-face 2007 hit “Piece of Me.”

She jumped up to grab a gold stripper pole that was wheeled around during “Radar,” she sat on the curved handle of a giant umbrella that lifted her above the stage for the mellow ballad “Everytime” and she stood in huge, empty picture frames during “Freakshow.”

Despite lots of offstage drama involving divorce, child-custody hearings and public breakdowns in recent years, Spears still has the raw magnetism that only a few pop stars possess.

One girl in her late teens screamed “Oh, my god!” as the lights dimmed to start the show and Spears made a dramatic entrance, dangling from the ceiling on a pair of hoops.

The three-ring stage used on this tour is one of the more lavish and impressive in pop this season.

A long curtain often descended to surround the large main stage and became a circular video screen. Trap doors were everywhere, allowing Spears and her crew, which included clowns, magicians, acrobats and dancers, to appear instantly, seemingly out of nowhere.

The sound was overpowering in places, and many of the set’s songs, drawn largely from Spears’ two most recent (and edgy) albums, had undergone remixes.

It appeared that Spears was lip-synching or singing along to taped vocals much of the time, but that no longer seems to bother fans who have heard murmurs about the star using that crutch for years.

A band that was placed in barely-visible spots around the stage may have been playing along to a soundtrack, too.

Once an energetic and inventive dancer, Spears has severely reined in the moves that used to raise eyebrows and thrill fans.

She had flashes of her old, impressive dance moves during such songs as “Boys,” “Get Naked” and one of the few classics she played, 1998’s “Baby One More Time.”

But much of the show featured Spears walking around the stage to throw down basic dance moves, strike poses for fans or grab the next prop.

Her 11 dancers got chances to show off their own moves during frequent breaks when Spears would disappear.

Spears spoke briefly to the audience a few times with stage banter such as, “What’s up, Phoenix? How are you feeling tonight?”

But the crowd, dominated by young women, went crazy throughout the set.

After all, they were seeing Britney Spears in the flesh.

Source: AZ Central