CONCERT REVIEW
Much-hyped Jackson show lacks spontaneous punch
By Derek Paiva
Advertiser Staff Writer
It was difficult to tell what was live and what wasn't at Janet Jackson's "All For You" tour finale Saturday night at Aloha Stadium.
HBO.com
Make no mistake, Jackson was really there, in all of her tightly choreographed, costume-changing glory. Also there: a small army of HBO camera personnel, their handheld and crane-mounted lenses, swooping for dozens of crowd shots and attracting as much audience attention as Jackson's onstage antics.
Many Janet Jackson fans declared her concert Saturday among the best they've seen, despite lip synching and disjointed theatrics.
The 35-year-old diva was a dynamic stage performer, and looked great, wearing a parade of costumes that ranged from spangly bikini tops and skin-tight pants to a shiny black, leather-look dominatrix outfit. But her all-too-obvious lip synching on the show's most physically demanding dance numbers, disjointed theatrics and at times rigid choreography made for a concert that sadly lacked spontaneity.
That point was made clear at the top of the show, when an errant stage curtain refused to fall during Jackson's "Come On Get Up" entrance — with the singer perched atop a metallic 30-foot high pedestal. The production was stopped and restarted 15 minutes later for the benefit of HBO cameras.
After that, you just knew nothing was gonna go wrong with this baby.
The themes were all over the place. There was an Alice in Wonderland-type playset, then a faux neon-and-Japanese character-strewn set that looked straight out of the Ginza district. The connection among these looks, her act and the music was sometimes tenuous.
For about two hours, Jackson satisfied her overwhelmingly appreciative minions with a concert that focused on much material from her "All For You" CD and a heaping helping of often-truncated offerings from her overflowing singles vault. The crowd went ballistic when she picked one lucky guy wearing a Janet T-shirt from the crowd, strapped him to an S&M-type apparatus — hey, we're not making this up — and slithered and writhed all over him while singing the sexy "Would You Mind." (Her show started late because 1,500 seats were rearranged near the stage to improve camera angles at the last minute, but that didn't seem to bother the enthusiastic crowd.)
Though rarely without colorful video or eye-candy theatrical accompaniment, the massive production had the smarts to always allow the tireless Ms. Jackson to remain the concert's main spectacle.
The highlights of the evening occurred whenever Jackson actually took a live mike and showed off her pipes. Though not in the lofty stratosphere of, say, Mariah's or Celine's, Jackson's voice is a gorgeous one that especially shined on a mid-show medley of the ballads "Come Back To Me," "Let's Wait Awhile," and "Again."
Another highlight was an all-too-brief appearance by an exuberant Missy Elliott, rising center stage for a live rap on "Son of a Gun," then descending just as quickly to the chants of a crowd that clearly wanted more Misdemeanor.
An encore with Jackson looking Gap simple in tight blue jeans and a white cut-off top showing off her abs of steel offered not just the undeniably attractive singer's best attire, but her best musical set as well.
The trifecta of "Doesn't Really Matter," "Someone To Call My Lover" and "Together Again" kept the crowd — nearly filling the stadium, and on its feet all evening — dancing and singing along in the aisles and wanting more.
After a show-ending fireworks display, many exiting Jackson fans were overheard declaring what they had just seen "the best concert ever" or "even better than the last time Janet came here." And, bless them, maybe both claims were true.
But to these eyes, the multimillion dollar pomp and circumstance and presence of many HBO cameras recording the moment could hardly disguise that much of the concert — billed by Jackson as the finale of her touring days — delivered little more musically than car radios off a Detroit production line.
