The Circus: Starring Britney Spears - Live at O2, London

6 June 2009

June 21, 2009, 08:00 PM

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The mere fact that Britney Spears was able to sell out not only the eight London dates on her most recent ‘The Circus: Starring Britney Spears’ tour, but all 23 dates on the European leg, is a point to be noted. Although, I say noted rather than commended, as it’s my opinion that someone who neither writes any of her own music anymore and doesn’t sing live is more a reflection of society’s musical stand point and the fact that if the look is pleasant enough, it really doesn’t matter how it sounds.

Arriving at the O2 arena right in the middle of opening act Ciara’s set, we find our seats next to one of the hundreds of girl groups dressed in theme from different Britney eras. Our row-mates were of the ‘…Baby One More Time’ era. Lucky us.
Giving credit where credit’s due, I was pleasantly surprised at Ciara’s on stage energy and general likeable persona. I was later to find out that she would have more to say, and more to sing, than Britney Spears herself.

Proving that Britney Spears chose a damn good theme for her tour, The Big Apple Circus act is next. Like a mini version of a Cirque du Soleil show, the 30-minute performance is an impressive and magical display of gymnastics and athletics. It almost makes the full ticket price reasonable.

After a comical video introduction by none other than celebrity blogger and general media whore Perez Hilton, which has him being shot with a bow and arrow by Spears, the starlet herself appears for Act 1 of the Circus in a flurry of strobe and smoke, surrounded by 12 dancers, to the tune of latest single ‘Circus’.

Now, you have to have been a complete moron to entertain the thought that Britney Spears may actually sing live. And as she opens her mouth for opening line “There’s only two types of people in this world”, her lip-syncing is obvious. Now this won’t be much of a shock to anyone who is still reading this review at this point, as I think it is common knowledge by now that Ms Spears can’t seem to sing and dance all at once anymore.

Following ‘Piece of Me’, the show is halted for the first of many costume changes for the night. Now, I have to admit, the costumes were one thing I was looking forward to – especially, like I say, with the wide theme, but when one sparkly bikini became another sparkly bikini, I was left unenthused and unimpressed. Prior to final song from Act 1, ‘Radar’, while Britney required another costume change, a remix version of ‘Gimme More’ was played and I found my attention waning. These unnecessarily lengthy changes interrupted the flow of the concert and were just generally annoying.

Act 2, House of Fun, began with a medley of ‘Oh oh Baby’ and ‘Hot as Ice’ during which Britney Spears uses the old diversion technique by performing disappearance magic to distract us from the pre-recordedness of the tracks. This point is only driven home harder when it can’t be denied that even the spoken word interludes during ‘Boys’ and ‘Me Against The Music’ are straight from their respective albums.

After eight tracks pass by, we finally get a greeting from Britney Spears, “What’s up London, how y’all doing?” but that’s pretty much it for the entire show. The fact that she is given a handheld mic for this section rather than using the one taped to her face spells out just how farcical the “live” performance has been up to this point. Britney Spears takes this moment to sit down on a revolving bejewelled umbrella and treats us to ‘Everytime’ from her 1999 album In the Zone. Obviously, this track, with its intense music video (you know, as far as pop videos go) has a particular meaning to Spears, justifying the choice to possibly sing this one for real:


Moving into Act 3, we are beaten over the head with the apparent premise of Freakshow/Peepshow as S&M bondage clad dancers come writhing out of holes in the stage floor and are blasted onto the video screens to an electronic sounding version of ‘Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This)’. The best costume change fill comes after ‘Breathe On Me’ and ‘Touch of My Hand’ (to which my friend comments “God, are they just playing the CD?”), where her dancers perform a short and sweet solo routine each. This would turn out to be the most impressive section of the night, and I still wish the dancers had more solo time.

Straying back to times of albums passed for Act 4 (Electro Circ), ‘I’m a Slave For You’, ‘Toxic’ and ‘Baby One More Time…’ are all covered with the same dance beat and end up sounding exactly the same as each other. But, to be fair, the entire place erupted when the first bars to “…Baby One More Time” started, and I’m surprised the girls dressed as high school Britney Spears alongside us didn’t wet themselves with excitement.

To remind everyone of the powerhouse that Britney Spears has become over the years, slides of different Britney’s that we’ve all come to know over the years are flashed on the massive screens, just in case you’d forgotten how we got to this somewhat vague point in history. Britney Spears went out with a bang with her most popular recent hit ‘Womanizer’ dressed as a scantily clad cop and surrounded by equally meagrely dressed dancers in a ring of fireworks and confetti.

Now, hands up who amongst you smug readers could have picked that the concert was going to be a terrible disaster and are now the ones cleverly patting yourselves on the back for not spending your hard earned cash on an evening to be shown a series of soft-porn oriented dance pop numbers…Oh yeah, I’m pretty sure we all could have picked that actually.

Now I’ve heard some winner excuses for the southern lass’s shows of late, but the worst thus far, as an attempt to make up for the abysmal musical ability and lack of live talent shown in the performance, was this gem, “But it wasn’t advertised as ‘Britney Live in Concert’ so that makes it okay for her not to sing”… Um, NO IT DOESN’T! I rue the day when there becomes a technicality clause to being a singer, saying that you don’t actually have to sing…
I always think at times like this, what would Etta think? What would Frank think? What would Ella think? Watching a bottle blonde, bikini clad 27-year-old mother-of-two gyrating over dancers dressed in leather S&M outfits miming lyrics about people “begging to if you seek Amy” (Yeah, I’m sure you don’t need me to spell that one out anymore).

To be honest, there were just so many things wrong with ‘The Circus: Starring Britney Spears’, from the singing (or lack thereof), to the need for such an extensive and elaborate stage production. I think the scandal is only made harder to accept with the fact that this little lady has been selling out these dates all over the world, despite there being no logical reason for it. What is wrong with the world when someone as musically talentless as this is praised and rewarded, yet a true talent may go completely unnoticed.

Britney Spears’ set list:

1. Circus
2. Piece of Me
3. Radar
4. Interlude featuring Gimme More
5. Oh Oh Baby/Hot As Ice Medley
6. Boys
7. If You Seek Amy
8. Me Against the Music
9. Everytime
10. Interlude featuring Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This)
11. Freakshow
12. Get Naked
13. Breathe on Me/Touch of My Hand Medley
14. Do Somethin’
15. I’m A Slave 4 U
16. Toxic
17. …Baby One More Time
18. Break The Ice
19. Womanizer

THE CIRCUS STARRING BRITNEY SPEARS 2009 TOUR INFORMATION

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