The following italicized article is from www.elpasotimes.com:One doesn't go to a Britney Spears concert for the music. Or the singing. You go for the spectacle.
You should have gone Monday night.
Talk about sensory overload.
Her "The Circus Starring Britney Spears," which packed the Don Haskins Center with nearly 12,000 people, is by far the recovering pop star's most lavish extravaganza yet, trotting out acrobats, gymnasts, circus clowns, musicians and a cadre of well-chiseled dancers on an ingenious stage set that simulates a freakish three-ring throwdown, complete with one big and two smaller, adjoining stages that filled the arena floor and looked like giant bullseyes.
The image is appropriate. Spears either sees herself as a victim of prowling paparazzi and a media infatuated with her every destructive move, seemingly unaware or unwilling to admit that those addicted to the spotlight often bring a lot of that bad voodoo on themselves.
"Circus" is Spears' reclamation tour, her stab at not only making a lot of money and resurrecting her once-sagging career, but a chance to dazzle her fans and reshape her battered image. Let's face it, before dad Jamie Spears took over her career last year, the former teen pop princess was on the road to nowhere.
He's got her back on track, supporting "Circus," a decent album of club-infused techno pop, with a lavish, over-the-top show that packs more costume changes, choreography and edgy beats-per-minute dance thump into 100 minutes than you're likely to see anywhere, much less El Paso, a sizable city that rarely hosts a top-grossing tour of the year like this one.
The fans couldn't have appeared happier. The largely young, largely female crowd seemed to eat it all up, saving its most enthusiastic applause for the final "Electro Circ" third of the show, when Spears, her invisible band (including former El Pasoan Johnny Najera on guitar) and cadre of dancers worked up some drastically reworked, clubbier versions of "I'm a Slave 4 U," "Toxic," one of her best hits, and "... Baby One More Time," her first hit.
The stage, created in part by El Paso's Steve Dixon (her tour director), is just the right vehicle for an over-the-big-top artist. Its three surfaces give Spears, who deserves a medal for dancing so well on high heels throughout the show, plenty of area with which to work the room while showcasing what she does best - dance.
The show's got a lot of eye-popping razzle dazzle and high-speed, high-flexibility dance moves, including a fun, lightly Bollywood version of "Me Against the Music."
Spears was largely muted through the show, rarely addressing the crowd. But she takes some serious chances, focusing mostly on material from her last two albums, not the lot of them, and serving up drastically reworked versions of her most familiar songs. She also stopped the proceedings long enough to thank the cheering crowd and offer up a rare live vocal on "Everytime," a ballad she butchered four years ago on her last tour, but nailed Monday night.
The show started on time and worked like clockwork Monday. Kristiana DeBarge got the crowd going with a very brief, two song set that included her club hit "Goodbye," followed by 2007 "American Idol" winner Jordin Sparks, a big-voiced singer who's still growing into the performer's role, but is a much more confident and powerful singer than she used to be.
Spears may not sing live much in the show, a blessing for those of us who appreciate a good voice like Sparks', but it's obvious that she's growing comfortable in her 27-year-old skin. Like I said before, you don't go to one of her shows for the singing. You go for the spectacle, and on Monday night she delivered big time.
Source: El Paso Times
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