Britney, Live!

On Tuesday, I attended the Britney Spears concert at the Verizon Center with 4 friends. So yeah, she’s not that great (or even that good) a singer, and yeah her life has imploded a couple times, and yeah, she’s richer than any 27 year old has a right to be…but you know what? I like singing along her to music so just shut it with the “blah blah Britney sucks blah.”

Any girl who tells you she has never rocked out to a Britney Spears song is lying.

Anyway, we decided to brave the vicious tweens (more on that later) and see if the reality of a Britney show could live up to the hype.

Quick review: Great show.

Ok, more in-depth thoughts: first off, my only real disappointment with the show was that they did not have large screens set up to allow for close-up views of the action. But I think the logistics would have been too difficult to pull this off. Mainly because the concert was performed in the round. The center of the Verizon Center contained three rings (the tour is named after her newest album called “Circus,” natch) and the entire space was utilized. I think having cameras try to capture all the action would have been impossible. However, this meant we couldn’t see any details of Britney herself; we were in the cheap seats and honestly it could have been some chick in a blonde wig and we wouldn’t have know the diff.

While it was pretty clear Britney was using a pre-recorded track, I can’t really fault her. There was a lot of dancing in that show and I can’t imagine anyone moving as much as she did and being able to sustain vocals that sounded anything close to good. (Side note: the Pussycat Dolls were the opening act, and as much as I find them kind of heinous, I was impressed by their ability to furiously dance and sound good…they were clearly singing live).

More on the dancing, in the beginning, it didn’t seem like Brit-Brit did all that much moving, but by the middle of the show she had hit her groove and was working it. A lot of her costume choices were questionable though (as you can see from the pics I have included).

But the coolest thing wasn’t even Britney. Continuing with the circus theme, the show included, dancers (duh), contortionists, acrobats, aerial stunts, guys on stilts, everything except live animals. Say what you want about Britney, but she know how to put on a show.

As for the songlist, I was surprised by how many of her songs came from her album Blackout that preceded Circus. She did the singles from Circus of course (opened the show with Circus, closed with Womanizer, and hit If U Seek Amy in the middle), but the majority came from Blackout with a few In the Zone songs thrown in. The only “classic” numbers I can think that she performed were Hit Me Baby (One More Time), remixed to awesome effect, Boys, and I’m A Slave 4 U. The only song that I could tell she sang live was a slower one, Everytime, and she sounded fine.

Regarding those vicious tweens, we definitely saw a brief fight break out before the show during the Pussycat Dolls. Two groups of girls converged with much yelling over who was sitting in whose seat. Cries of, “let me see your ticket!,” “let me see your ticket!, “ Bitch, don’t touch me!” were exchanged and then a brief shoving match occurred. I think they all figured out that shoving each other while standing like a hundred rows up from the floor was a bad idea and people seemed to calm down.

I was disappointed nobody pushed that drunk bitch who was dressed up as schoolgirl Britney down. She kept making us get up and down so she could walk past us to the aisle, and then started smoking in the middle of the show. But then she tripped and almost fell down the stairs, so that made me feel better. She was wasted.

All in all, like I said, it was a great show. Entertaining, definitely. I wasn’t expecting a performance of say, Kelly Clarkson proportions, but that’s not Britney’s shtick. For what it was, it was great, and I would definitely see her again.

I’m still only paying for the cheap seats though. I mean, I have some standards.

By the way, if you want to see even more concert pics and some more ridiculous outfits from the concert, go here.