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Mariah has the moves and the voice
The numbers tell a different story, perhaps, but Mariah Carey's career recovery
seems to be coming along just fine. True, her records don't fly off the shelves
at the pace they once did and there was enough vacancy in the undersold Air Canada
Centre last night - 5,000 or 6,000 people in a venue that can hold upwards of 15,000
- that frantic scalpers were intercepting concertgoers with offers of below-cost tickets.
Mariah's Toronto following is an exceedingly devoted one, though, and projected
sufficient enthusiasm from the floor for twice its numbers. And if Ms. Carey herself
was troubled by the large patches of empty seats facing her, it didn't show.
Entering from the back to the rubbery funk intro from "Heartbreaker", Carey glided
through the crowd looking every inch the diva in a wee pink dress and precipitously
high heels, and effortlessly remained the centre of attention for the next two hours.
This was in part because, among the 15 or more back-up singers, dancers and musicians
sharing the stage, she was usually wearing the least amount of clothes. Mainly, though,
she's a genuinely magnetic performer.
Her weakness for wailing, syrupy material is a problem if melodrama's not your bag.
Hearing Carey - a monstrously gifted vocalist who, unlike a great number of today's
top-tier pop acts, devotes most of her time to singing rather than choreographed
dance routines - force a bit more grit through her pipes on the disco-fied
self-empowerment anthem "Make It Happen", the Tom Tom Club-checking "Fantasy",
a surprisingly powerful cover of Def Leppard's "Bringin' On The Heartbreak" (complete
with showy rock guitar solo) or the sultry soul grinder "Clown" only made you wonder
what might have been if she'd devoted her career to something rougher than the
interchangeable wedding-song ululations of "My Saving Grace", "My All" or "Always Be
My Baby".
Still, the lady inhabits her hokey "believe in yourself" ballads and giggly girly-girl
persona far more believably than most of her contemporaries, and her much-publicized
post-Glitter crack-up a couple of years ago has made Mariah far more outwardly human
than, say, Madonna. The beaming singer spent much of the loosely circus-themed
production tippy-toeing around the stage while her dancers fetched her tea and made
like flash-popping paparazzi, then performed "Through The Rain" reclining in an
armchair and was lowered from the ceiling in a tiny white cocktail dress for "Subtle
Invitation". All the gratuitous preening and pampering suggested there's also a thin
undercurrent of irony to her Charmbracelet tour. "We're just having a good time up
here," she said at one point. "It's all jokes. It's all in fun."
This had the supportive mob of girls, girls, girls - pre-teens, "tweens," teens,
20-somethings, 30-somethings, Moms and hard-looking divorcées - travelling in
decked-out packs and jubilant gay men out in front on Carey's side, anyway.
Even an endless succession of lengthy costume changes (eight outfits, all told,
one a denim hot pants and cut-off Harley Davidson tee ensemble worn for one verse
dropped over the video to Busta Rhymes' "I Know What You Want") papered over by
dance numbers and performances by the various musicians and singers on stage with
Carey did little to disrupt the momentum. Those who still love Mariah obviously
love her a lot.
(Toronto Star)
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