Absolutely Charmed By Mariah Carey (LONG REVIEW)

WITH a dainty shuffle, an occasional flick of her mane, a subtly seductive teasing flutter of her eyes, Mariah Carey’s date in Jakarta was a charmer, promising to take Malaysians by storm tomorrow at the Merdeka Stadium.
True to her promise made in Singapore just last weekend, she didn’t let any silly dress code regulations compromise her showmanship.
And boy, did she show a lot last Sunday!
While concerts of such scale are hardly conducive to developing erotic fission, her tour does not stint on spectacle – dancers tried to outdo each other through their tight choreography, back-up singers strived to out-warble each other and Mariah stuck to her choice of costumes in the very bits and pieces (literally) that we’ve come to know and love her for.
Forget everything you’ve ever heard about her in the past couple of years. Forget the fact that she suffered a breakdown in 2001.
Forget the fact that her semi-autobiographical movie, Glitter, was universally panned, and forget the fact that she holds the unenviable distinction of being paid off to leave her previous recording outfit after just the first album of a five-record deal.
While her reputation may have taken a scorching of late, (one reviewer pointed out in reference to her that while baubles are fine, you just don’t want to lose an hour and a half looking at one), onstage, Mariah was a real gem.
Ticket prices reflected that well enough with many paying up to Rp1.7 million (about RM810) and Rp 1.35 million (RM645), with the cheapest at Rp500,000 (RM230).
But the 5,000 in attendance proved that they were not going to allow that to stand between them and watching and listening to Mariah live for the first time in Jakarta.
At most concerts, it’s easy to match the audience to the act, just by how the crowd looks.
But the 33-year-old superstar has the sort of gigantic and widespread popularity that renders her fans demographically diverse yet culturally homogeneous.
The concert in the Jakarta Convention Centre (JCC) in Central Jakarta was attended by a majority of the local fashionistas, with local supermodels and designers, several celebrities, as well as enthusiastic members of the audience playing dress-up in the Mariah themes of either dressy/classy or flirty/flaunty.
But they hardly typified the crowd, which really could have been a random population sample scooped up from a local mall and transferred en masse to the venue.
Some audience members looked like folks you’d expect to see at the symphony rather than for someone who’s done duets with a Medusa-haired hip-hopper called Ol’ Dirty Bastard while others were decades younger and ethnically diverse.
It was obvious they were there for the same reason.
Which was to soak in Mariah’s brand of love songs which expressed hope, and not untethered fantasy, unlike more regular pop fluff.
This is one of the few misunderstood aspects of Mariah’s career.
And, oh, she’s not trying to look like a sexpot, she’s merely having fun playing dress-up.
And boy did she have fun, trotting out in six different costumes, none of which were the supposed locally designed outfits to safeguard local sensitivity.
If that wasn’t enough visual stimulation for everyone, a half-dozen dancers pranced about through many of the songs, as videos beamed in canned guest appearances by rappers such as Busta Rhymes and impressionist art on two gigantic video walls.
There was a playfulness and relative spontaneity to the show that was refreshing, at least in terms of the sort of top-heavy spectacles we usually get from top acts.
There were no pyrotechnics, no motorised runways, no lip syncing. Instead, there were lots of easygoing ad-libbing and interaction between the musicians with the crowd cheering over a dozen chart-topping numbers.
Mariah occasionally showed off her peculiar vocal signature, those little passages of notes somewhere in the range of, er, Q over high Z, about half an octave down from a dog whistle, unrelated to the songs in either melody or meaning, but was technically amazing to say the least.

http://www.emedia.com.my/Current_New...20040219110920

[Mike v2.0]

Thanks Safa!

[THA SASSY DIVA]

Originally posted by beutifulstrangr
Forget everything you’ve ever heard about her in the past couple of years. Forget the fact that she suffered a breakdown in 2001.
Forget the fact that her semi-autobiographical movie, Glitter, was universally panned, and forget the fact that she holds the unenviable distinction of being paid off to leave her previous recording outfit after just the first album of a five-record deal.
While her reputation may have taken a scorching of late, (one reviewer pointed out in reference to her that while baubles are fine, you just don’t want to lose an hour and a half looking at one), onstage, Mariah was a real gem.

And, oh, she’s not trying to look like a sexpot, she’s merely having fun playing dress-up.

There were no pyrotechnics, no motorised runways, no lip syncing. Instead, there were lots of easygoing ad-libbing and interaction between the musicians with the crowd cheering over a dozen chart-topping numbers.

Those [see above] are my favorite parts of the review.


Thanks for posting Safa


Skye

You guys are welcome... I agree Skye those are great quote. Did you guys read the rest of the Review, there was more in the link.