The ‘Circus’ Tour: Team Britney’s Bright Ideas Pay Off
There’s nothing like a solid concert to remind the world that your onstage tricks are more headline-worthy than your offstage drama. And at the LA stop of Britney Spears’ Circus Tour, she proved that there’s substance beneath her hype.
When you’re Britney Spears, it’s tough to give your fans everything they crave in the course of a couple hours, but I’ve gotta give Team Britney props for pulling off some smart moves throughout the night that showcased why a decade later, Britney’s still deserving of her pop crown!
1. Lip-Synching
Most singing/dancing pop acts utilize backing tracks to some degree, but very few can get away with mouthing their lyrics for an entire show. When it comes to Britney, however, taking the live singing element out of the equation ensures fans that they’ll be able to sing along with her studio effects-driven tracks without worrying about her slowing down the songs’ tempos in order to preserve her breath.
2. Shiny Moving Things
From clowns to contortionists to magic tricks, the only element of a circus that was missing at the show was a giant elephant. With all of this spectacular action, the crowd had more to look at in addition to Britney’s choreography. While she most definitely broke a sweat while busting out some precise moves during the night – the Bollywood sequence was bananas – her signature “sexy walk” (you know which one I’m talking about) was hands down the steamiest move of the night.
3. Blackout Gets Its Due
The evening’s packed playlist was evidence that Britney’s got an extensive catalog of hits. So many, in fact, that she didn’t get to a few of her classics like “Oops I Did It Again’ and “Crazy”. But, she did give some much-deserved stage time to a couple of the scorching jams from her Blackout album that radio neglected like “Radar” and “Get Naked”.
Did you seriously just defend her lip-syncing through an entire concert? I like when MUSIC artistes make creative moves with their songs in LIVE concerts. I like being able to hear what they can do sans all the technological bells and whistles of a studio. I mean…if there’s lip-syncing, then it just becomes an elaborate music video/dance performance.
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Albert Lawrence Reply:
April 18th, 2009 at 10:21 am
Hehe! I appreciate it when performers create live interpretations as well, but Britney’s stage show was less about her doing vocal gymnastics and more about the crowd being able to chant along. At times it did feel like we were witnessing a mega-video taking place in front of us, and that was cool! By the time I got caught up in the energy/excitement, I realized that no matter what went down onstage, we were gonna have a party in Section 212!
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I’m with Al on supporting Brit’s lip-synching.
As frustrating as it can be for the fans of powerful vocalists to see Britney get more attention in mainstream media than their more musically talented heroes, the bottom line is she has a huge mainstream market demand and provides her customers with an experience that leaves them satisfied for the price they paid.
In the Google age, there’s no surprises anymore. More or less, you know what kind of experience to expect out of every concert or movie you go to.
And since everything is so segmented into niches, there’s an outlet for everyone’s tastes. Every summer there are tours by everyone from lip-synching pop divas like Britney to lightning-speed guitarists like those in Metallica.
As T.I. puts it, “you can have whatever you like.”
So you wouldn’t go watch “Twilight” and then complain because it’s unbelievable, predictable, and lacks character depth.
Besides, a lot of more “musically talented” artists and bands use their own tools along the same continuum: lyric teleprompters, backup MIDI programmed synth instrumentation, in-ear-monitors that feed both “click-tracks” (a metronome to keep them in time) and guideline notes to keep them in key. Is this much different?
As someone who’s seen it both ways, the tools really do make even the best & most talented play better.
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I heard no complaints from the tour
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