Almost 13 years since she last toured the UK as part of her Charmbracelet album promotional tour, the best-selling female artist of the millennium marks her return to these shores with the Sweet Sweet Fantasy tour. We managed to track down the elusive chanteuse on Friday at her Manchester stop.
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It's a testing time for divas on tour lately, what with audience-member wardrobe malfunctions and contentious widespread cancellations, so Mariah's minor clerical error over a lack of printed programmes in time for the tour's commencement seems positively inconsequential in the scheme of things.
Made up entirely of her singles, the tour is best described as a pseudo-greatest hits tour, though not delivered in the same pedestrian fashion as her Vegas residency. Mariah is clearly in fine vocal form and happily plays up to her famous diva persona - the show opens with her being carried in by her harem of obscenely handsome dancers, of course - and it thankfully avoids going down the uninteresting chronological route the aforementioned Number 1's performances followed.
To the peasants she may be strictly thought of as a supremo balladeer, but the show does a good job of mixing up the tempo so as to avoid it becoming a ballad marathon. Nevertheless, the choice of inclusions and omissions does seem strange when considered after the fact: Obsessed was present, but not I Want To Know What Love Is (the more successful single from the same album, and her last UK Top 20 hit); her Busta Rhymes collab I Know What You Want got a look in, but not her most successful recent single #Beautiful; she even performed Loverboy from the infamous Glitter soundtrack album but not - and perhaps most egregious of all - Honey!
Nitpicking over the song selections aside, the famously festive singer proves she's still got a solid set of pipes to belt out her biggest hits. In addition to the unintentional amusement of watching her escorted around the stage as she struggles to totter around in her heels, highlights from her performances included My All with some impressive melodic ad libs, a surprisingly moving rendition of her duet with a from-beyond-the-grave Whitney on their hit When You Believe, and her timeless classic Always Be My Baby. During the middle of the show, and helping to facilitate another sparkly wardrobe change, Trey Lorenz (who had joined Mariah for an earlier rendition of their hit I'll Be There) did a fantastic and enthusiastic performance of the Jackson 5 hit Rock With You - even if audience members had undoubtedly paid through the nose to see and hear Mariah sing, not one of her musical pals. As it was, the roughly 90-minute show whistled by at an alarming rate - a sure sign Mariah did a great job.
Perhaps the only real criticsm to level at the show is the way it slowly wound down on a fairly low-key and abrupt note, with the choice of encore - Without You - not exactly helping things either. While a massive #1 hit in the UK back in 1994, an emotional ballad doesn't exactly encourage the audience to leave feeling elated - arguably the opposite. The Rainbow album closer and uplifting Top 10 hit, Thank God I Found You would have been a better choice.
Mariah's discography is quite the catalogue and there are very few blips across her 30-something years in the business - we don't talk about Triumphant (Get 'Em) - so putting together any set list is going to be met with a subjective reaction from fans who object to their personal faves not being present. Hopefully an attempt to build momentum and an international presence ahead of album number 14, Mariah proves she can still put on an effortlessly enjoyable evening with her music. Now if only she would go slightly off-brand and do a Kylie-style Anti Tour, full of album deep cuts and b-sides, that would truly excite the fans...
(Gay Times Magazine)
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