After decades of marketing by the Ringling Brothers, it's hard to hear the word “circus” without flashing on the phrase, “The Greatest Show on Earth.” Britney Spears' current tour could change that, however.Dubbed “The Circus Starring Britney Spears,” it's a three-ring extravaganza that comes with all the bells and whistles. In addition to the usual array of dancers, video displays and costume changes, Spears added clowns, acrobats and even a magic act to her road show. High-tech and high-concept, it is a state-of-the-art spectacle, from the show-opening video sequence (featuring gossip blogger Perez Hilton in Elizabeth I drag) to the show-closing combination of fireworks and confetti cannons.
Yet for all that dazzle, there was precious little sizzle onstage at Toronto's Air Canada Centre Wednesday. Even though Spears always hit her mark, managing the complex choreography and constant costume changes with military precision, there was no sense of passion in her performance, none of the fire normally associated with star power.
Spears returns in first concert tour in 5 years
Unlike Madonna or Michael Jackson, who at their best always seem somehow larger than life, Spears came off as, well, merely famous. And while that added a certain sass to Piece of Me, with its “I'm Mrs. Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous” refrain, it frankly wasn't enough to sustain a 90-minute extravaganza.
I hesitate to use the word “concert” here because, frankly, there wasn't a lot of music being performed during the show. Although Spears did have a small band tucked away on the west side of the centre ring, the bulk of what was heard came courtesy of pre-recorded tracks — and that included the vocals.
Apart from Every Time, which Spears sang while hanging from an oversized parasol, it was unclear how much of what came through the P.A. Wednesday was live Britney, and how much was tape. Certainly, she kept her lips moving. But there was nothing in her actions, in the way she moved or held her body, that seemed to convey the act of singing. Most of the time, she looked like a dancer acting out a recording.
Given the physical demands of the choreography — Me Against the Music, for example, literally had Spears running from one end of the stage to the other — it almost seems churlish to expect that she keep up with her dancers and sing decently, too. And she did at least keep up the pretense of vocalizing, which was more than could be said for her opening act, the Pussycat Dolls. Apart from Nicole Scherzinger, the Dolls for the most part didn't even bother pretending to sing, correctly assuming that dancing and preening were more important than musical proficiency.
The Pussycat Dolls' emphasis on strutting their stuff does raise one interesting point about the show, which was its curious approach to female sexuality. Between the stripper chic of the Dolls act (which, yes, included the obligatory dash of pole dancing) and the relentless kink of Britney's (the dancers kept turning up in bondage gear, and Spears had not one but two outfits featuring breast tassels), it would be easy to condemn the show for gratuitously objectifying the female form — which seems a bit odd, given that the audience was roughly 80 per cent female.
But as much as the staging stressed sex, there wasn't any heat to the bump and grind. Instead, the display of sexual attitude came off as a sort of muscle flexing, a show of strength rather than a come-on.
And in the end, that was perhaps the best thing about Spears' show. However scandalous her personal life may have been, she does manage to convey a generally positive message, something that keeps her Circus from descending to the level of empty spectacle. That may not be the greatest recommendation on earth, but it's still more than most pop tours deliver.
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