The Angels Advocate Tour 2010 - Dallas, USA

The Angels Advocate Tour 2010 - Dallas, USA - Heroes of Mariah

2/18/10 Nokia Theatre
Seating capacity TBA
Click here to access the venue site.
Price range: TBA

2/18/10 concert
Setlist:
01. Butterfly Intro/Daydream Interlude
02. Shake It Off
03. Touch My Body
04. Fly Like a Bird
05. Make It Happen
06. Angels Cry
07. Always Be My Baby
08. It's Like That
09. The Impossible
10. Love Hangover/Heartbreaker
11. Honey
12. My All
13. Obsessed
14. Up Out My Face
15. We Belong Together
16. Hero
(thanks to MariahDaily)
Pictures:

Reviews:

Mariah Carey at Nokia last night
Remember when Mariah Carey was a hot mess a few years ago? I don’t think she’s quite done with that whole stint just yet. Last night’s show had “train wreck” written all over it. And then “sinking ship” graffiti-ed over that!

The show was scheduled to start at 7:30 with opening act RydazNrtist. We didn’t make it in time for that but heard they were on and off the stage in no time. We arrived maybe a nickel after 8 p.m. With Michael Jackson’s greatest hits blaring over the speakers, the crowd seemed in an OK mood. That is until the crowd started to realize that both CDs of MJ’s hits were sounding like they would be played to completion. The air in the room was filling with frustration and after one MJ track too many, Nokia filled with aggressive booing by the entire audience. And then the lights went out. Although the audience then switched into screaming applause, the move felt more like a way to stifle the booing than building anticipation.

I really don’t know where to start once the show began. Whether it was the lackluster set that belonged on a cruise ship or second-tier Vegas showroom, her descent from a giant swing in a ruffly gown (later stripped to a ruffly mini) or how she spent more time offstage changing outfits. Perhaps I could go into the senseless banter where she admits to diva behavior (her hair and makeup people came out once to touch her up) but then has to confess, “I’m not really like that!” That wasn’t really disproved by her inability to put on a robe later and had to have help by one of her dancers. Oh, and there was the random Michael Jackson tribute by backup singer Trey Lorenz and her outta nowhere tribute to Diana Ross which lasted about three minutes.

But what seemed to fill the room was her being tardy for her own party. She came on at 9:22 p.m. In her bubbly tone, all she could say was “Thank you for your patience.” I guess divas don’t actually apologize. Later, she went into some monologue about why she thought she wasn’t even going to make it to the show but it was so convoluted and disjointed, I gave up trying to figure it out. She basically sounded like an idiot.

Her voice was mostly on mark throughout. Carey doesn’t sound pristine but she doesn’t let you forget she does have a strong voice. I hated that she basically ignored her first two albums (some of her best work) other than for a worthless interlude of “Make It Happen.” She instead opted for a catalog of audience-pleasing hits but without any direction. “Touch my Body,” “Always Be My Baby,” and “Heartbreaker” were all satisfactory and got the screams but nothing was cohesive. It’s a ballad! It’s hip-hop! What next?

After just a trio of songs, she was gone to change each time. If it wasn’t that, she talked way too much while she drank her champagne between numbers. She could have fit in about 7 or 8 more tracks had she not wasted so much time with irrelevant wardrobe changes and babbling.By they way, she did have time to plug her upcoming Angel Champagne.

The show was amateurish at best and a disappointment for a pop star veteran who should know better. Mariah turns 40 this year but everything about her reeks 16 year-old bubblegum princess and watching her live in this fairy tale world onstage was embarrassing and painful.

We were there: Mariah Carey at Nokia Theatre
What happened to the Mariah Carey that stunned me back in 1990 with "Vision of Love?" That gifted singer is not who I saw in concert Thursday night at Nokia Theatre in Grand Prairie. The Mariah Carey I witnessed last night wouldn't stop talking about nonsense, kept changing her clothes and sang one throwaway song after another. What's worse, she did "Up Out My Face," perhaps the most embarrassing tune of her career. It's from last year's Memoirs of an Imperfect Angel, a musically lifeless disc.

I was at her Dallas stop on The Emancipation of Mimi tour a few years back. I enjoyed the gig. She did a nice job of combining splash with substance. She hasn't a clue anymore. This is a woman that once had a flowing quality to her soaring voice. Now she's just adept at caterwauling. Her pipes are cold and soulless.

Maybe I'll pull out my copy of her self-titled debut album to remind myself of what Mariah Carey used to be. But not for a few days. I need to let the memory of this show exit my brain.

Review: Mariah Carey misses the mark in Grand Prairie
If you're going to be a diva, have the total package.

If that's not a saying shared among the world's elite vocal performers, it should be. And one of the first singers who should heed it is Mariah Carey, the five octave R&B-pop princess turned hip-hop moll and occasional actress. Her 95-minute performance Thursday night at Grand Prairie's Nokia Theatre struggled to justify the nearly hour-long delay from the reported start time (for what it's worth, she apologized -- vaguely -- and alluded to nearly not coming out at all) and suffered from her tendency to ramble between songs -- when she wasn't disappearing offstage for minutes at a time for costume changes, that is.

Endearing? Perhaps, but a little charming chatter goes a long way.

Amid plugs for her forthcoming remix album, Angels Advocate, which shakes up tracks from last year's Memoirs of an Imperfect Angel, and an unreleased line of champagne, Angel Rose (hmm, a theme?), Carey dabbed herself dry with tissue, allowed her hair and make-up team to perform an onstage touch-up and cooed at the fans straining to reach across the barrier down front.

Taken together, it created a maddening, stop-start evening that made one wonder if all of Carey's snide cracks about the media's tendency to characterize her as a diva were actually defensive. ("You need the haters sometimes," she told the mostly full room.) Does she think she's in a class with the likes of, say, Tina Turner or Barbra Streisand, legends who've probably never done anything onstage as peculiar as apologizing for a sip of bubbly? Or is the whole thing a put-on, a sly commentary on showbiz's puffed-up tendencies?

Either way, once the distractions ceased, Carey also sang. Rather than simply mime along to a backing track and amp up the splashy choreography, Carey really, truly did sing -- she hardly moved at all during the often vocally challenging numbers, whether it was a vintage track (Make It Happen) or something more recent (It's Like That).

The surprisingly tasteful stage was nevertheless decked out with her trio of back-up singers (now we know what happened to Trey Lorenz after people stopped requesting that cover of I'll Be There), four-piece band and nine dancers.

Twenty years after her debut, Carey continues to exude an almost coquettish sexuality, mingled with a street-wise sensibility and pious songbird tendencies. She didn't shy away from indulging in the much-vaunted whistle register; Carey also didn't seem to notice the occasionally sloppy dance routines transpiring around her (or the blatant "Pink du Soleil" swipe during Angels Cry).

Maybe the tour, as it nears the finish line (only four shows left!), is showing signs of fatigue. Particularly during the first few songs, Carey seemed a bit adrift. She pulled together as the night wore on, emerging for a valedictory version of her signature hit Hero. It seems even divas, be they real or pretend, can have an off night.

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Heroes of Mariah 2000
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