Source: Britney Spears "Absolutely Not Dating" Her Agent

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

Forget the false reports: Britney Spears is not seeing her longtime agent Jason Trawick, a source close to Spears tells Usmagazine.com.

"They are absolutely, 100 percent not dating," the source tells Us. "He is her agent, and that is it."

E! News reported Wednesday that Spears was secretly stepping out with Trawick, but the insider tells Us, "They have never gone out on a date.

"He has been her agent for four years, and they are very close friends," the source continues.

"He gets on with her family, but there is absolutely categorically nothing romantic going on.

"Jason was on the road with Britney for three of her tour dates, but that is because he is close friends with her brother Bryan, and that's what agents do -- they support their clients," the source goes on. "Any stories of them being together are completely and utterly made up."

Source: US Weekly

Billboard's Circus Review

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

Britney Spears must make other pop stars angry.

Beyonce, Pink, Justin … none of them would dare use pre-recorded vocals during their live shows, despite the complex choreography of their performances. Madonna and Janet are guilty of using backing tracks to carry some of vocal weight, but certainly not all of it. Hell, even the Pussycat Dolls sing live.

But Britney? She is, and always has been, about blatant, unapologetic lip-synching. Case in point: at the New York stop of her anticipated comeback tour, Spears used her actual vocal chords only three times – twice to thank the crowd, and once to sing a ballad (though the vocals during that number were questionable, as well). Even the spoken bits in the songs came from a DAT. Somewhere, Ashlee Simpson has a dartboard with Brit's face square in the bull's-eye.

Of course, none of this bothered the 16,000 fans that turned up to cheer the resurrected icon at Nassau Coliseum Wednesday night. Britney merely paid lip service to her songs, but the audience members screamed the words to every hit at the top of their collective lungs – even if it was obvious they were the only ones really singing.

Why does Britney get a pass when so many other pop stars keep it real? Has her audience become more forgiving after watching their heroine publicly wrestle with her personal demons over the last few years? Perhaps, but sympathy alone doesn't fill arenas to the rafters.

The truth is that vocal prowess has never been the fuel that powers the Britney Machine. Singing simply isn't the point. Spears is an entertainer; a put-on-a-show kind of girl. And despite what happens behind the curtain, Britney's Circus tour is indeed quite a show.

Focusing largely on material from her last three albums, Spears' first outing in five years is a dazzling, racy, in-the-round spectacle that's a little Cirque de Soliel, a little Skinemax, but all Britney at its core. Designed to play up her biggest strengths (i.e. her well-honed dance skills) and distract from her shortcomings, the highly choreographed show features an over-the-top array of acrobats, magicians, clowns, and no less 12 dancers on stage at any given time. The scale of the concert is so massive, in fact, it at times threatens to eclipse its star. Still, despite all of the smoke and mirrors, the most alluring aspect of the show remains Britney herself.

Looking more lively (and more fit) than she has in half a decade, Spears donned 12 different costumes as she shimmed and shook her way through a 17-song set that featured some of her biggest hits, including "Piece of Me," "Toxic," "Womanizer," and funky new remixes of "Slave 4 U" and "…Baby One More Time."

After years of studying the playbooks of Madonna and Janet Jackson, Britney has learned a thing or two about showmanship. When not strutting her scantily-clad stuff from one end of the arena to the other, Spears had plenty of other tantalizing ways to keep the crowd captivated. One minute, she was being sawed in half. The next, she was a straddling dancer suspended 20 feet in the air. If she wasn't writhing around in a gilded cage, she was giving a center-stage lap dance to one very lucky audience member.

But entertainment wasn't Britney's only goal. More than anything, she wants this tour to prove to the world that she's stronger than yesterday, and that she's back in control of her own circus. Her assortment of authoritative costumes (Sexy Ringleader! Sexy drill sergeant! Sexy policewoman!) helped to drive the point home, but the biggest evidence of Spears' rebirth was simply the confidence and vigor behind her performance. For the first time in ages, she actually worked for the applause – and, like the Britney we once knew, she seemed to have a great time doing it.

Thanks to her infectious enthusiasm, Spears managed to pull off the biggest magic trick of all – she erased the image of the sad, wayward diva that has been plastered across the tabloids for the last few years. And for many fans, that alone was cause for ovation.

Source: Billboard

Another Special Guest At Tonight's "Circus" Show

Source: Adam Leber

She’s Back, and Now She’s Angry

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

Eighteen months ago Britney Spears took the stage at the 2007 MTV Video Music Awards and, it surely seemed, doused her career in lighter fluid and struck a match. In her brief performance she looked fatigued, unhappy and disoriented. With Ms. Spears already in the middle of a hostile run in the tabloids, this was something worse than self-injury; it was a speeding car with no driver. Surely no good ending was possible.

That she might attempt a tour on the scale of the one that arrived at the Nassau Coliseum here on Wednesday night would have appeared laughable and worrying. That she pulled it off was nothing short of a shock.

Even though Ms. Spears is essentially operating under the auspices of her father, Jamie Spears, who last year was granted legal conservatorship over her, she is 27 now, a mother of two and finally in righteous possession of the anger and frustration that have long animated some of her best music, but never her persona.

Not that she was sneering her way through this warp-speed-quick hour-and-a-half performance. This was less a concert — the vocals appeared to be recorded — than a Las Vegas-style revue of intimidating complexity. Throughout, though she spoke little, Ms. Spears appeared radiant and unfettered, often smiling and never uncommitted.

There was efficient, expert use of a huge stage set in the round, featuring about a dozen backup dancers choreographed impressively by Jamie King.

The rigid execution extended to image management as well: Ms. Spears’s handlers denied access to photographers except under the strictest of usage terms.

From the tour’s title — “The Circus Starring Britney Spears” — on down, the night was rife with blunt-force imagery: Ms. Spears locked in a cage and working her way out, Ms. Spears suspended in a picture frame, Ms. Spears as a ringmaster wielding a whip. During many segments of the show she and her dancers wore bondage-inspired outfits reminiscent of early-’90s modes of sexual transgression.

And there was no room for reflection; the past had moved by far too quickly to dwell on it. Ms. Spears performed a version of her first hit, “ ... Baby One More Time,” and, in a video montage before the encore, flashed through scenes and images from her entire career. (Her kiss with Madonna at the 2003 MTV Video Music Awards received the biggest cheer.) But otherwise there were no references to her first two albums. Any song with even a whiff of naïveté was stricken from the record — no “I’m Not a Girl, Not Yet a Woman,” no “Sometimes,” no “From the Bottom of My Broken Heart.”

Instead she leaned heavily on the surprisingly strong “Circus” (Jive), her sixth album, released late last year, and her previous album, “Blackout,” from 2007: songs about empowerment and disempowerment set to frantic production. Rarely varying from script, she resisted deep reading, though midshow she briefly erupted into a military shout. “I don’t know what you’ve been told,” she said. “This mama is in control.” She seemed certain of it.

Source: NY Times

Changes To Be Made On 'The Circus Tour'

Adam Leber confirmed via Twitter that some fun changes will be made to the tour in the coming days.

The announcement comes after Britney made some changes to the performances of 'Toxic' and 'Slave 4 U' to a positive reception by fans.

Source: Break The Ice