I just arrived from Singapore today, quite tired but very satisfied. Vic and I watched Christina Aguilera's Back to Basics show last night, one of the first three legs of Asian cities, that we are watching - Hong Kong is on Tuesday, Manila on Friday.
Well, I will try not to give too much away lest some of you will watch the Friday show here. First suggestion, is that you listen to her Back to Basics album before going to the show. As my baby Alberto would say, "You have to listen to the opera recording before watching the opera itself, so you can enjoy it." Same applies for pop concerts, especially this one. One reason why I enjoyed her show so much was that I was quite familiar already with the material in that album, and it's really a different Christina she is projecting here - very classy, very sassy, quite sexy, quite a polished act. In my opinion, ever since Madonna upped the ante with her Confessions Tour, the pressure to produce a really good pop concert has become greater, even if the actual performer can sing, and sing well.
Second, if you're harking back to her innocent "What A Girl Want Days", forget about it. I believe Christina hated that period of her career, (although it made her a star), and completely revamped the arrangement of the hits during that period in her concert. I would still pine for the pop arrangements, but I think she makes a clear statement here that her cutesy, pop music days are way, way over. Third, her live show really breathes life to her album. When I heard her album, I found it a bit uneven since there was so much good material lumped in with many ideas she was trying to experiment with. (Her Back to Basics album is composed of two CDs, so quite a lot of material to get through in one evening.) What her live show did was to highlight the songs that she really liked, and she performed them superbly, and the quality of her voice, the live band, the choreography - all served to accentuate the sounds of her influences and push her forward as a serious pop artist. Fourth, I think she learned a lot from the Madonna "How to Put Up a Pop Concert" handbook. The choreography was quite interesting and a joy to watch, and it was made more impressive because she has the voice to match the moves. What I feel she has done here was to stamp her 20's inspired musical arrangements and bring the audience back to that exact period where heavy beats predominant in today's hip hop tunes are given more style and rhythm.
My favorite part, well, I always loved her "Dirrty" phase, and in this show she did not disappoint. The arrangements for "Dirrty" and "Fighter" were not changed from the original, and, except for some wardrobe tweaks (this is supposed to be a 20's themed-live show, remember?), the performance level for both songs were quite exhilarating. I loved the way she did "Fighter", confetti was already on my mouth and my hair, and she had some really nice-looking dancers (male, mind you my dears) who were strutting their stuff in that song.
By the way, check out the Cavalli clothes, hmmmm......for someone short, she looked quite leggy and accentuated her curves very well (up there and down there as well), a naughty designer for a naughty performer - the partnership works!
I just heard she was pregnant but I'm not quite sure if it's true. If it were, if she were my girlfriend, I would be petrified since with a baby on the way, I wouldn't let her work too hard especially on her first trimester. Oh well, I hope the rumor is not true, because as we Filipinos say, "bigay na bigay talaga siya sa show" - in terms of singing and the dancing and wawa naman ang baby. And worried also about her getting too tired since it's a lot of cities to go to. Hay, just wondering, now that I fully understand already what goes through when a woman gets pregnant especially on the first trimester.
I'm looking forward to her HK show on Tuesday. Let's see how the HK Chinese crowd reacts. The Singapore reception was very warm, but I believe the Manila crowd will be more wild and we can sing way way much better than anyone in Asia, so prepare to sing along to "Hurt". The Singapore crowd also loved "Candyman" - I did too! Cute choreography too!
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