Et Voila

Once again, no pictures until Herr Himmler the firewall leaves me alone. I'm sure y'all understand.

Last night, as you are probably aware, I went to the Britney Spears concert. Let me give you a little background. I have been a dance school brat since the age of 4. I loved dance class! I loved it so much I did as many dance exams as I could and when I was 16 I harassed a teacher at my school so that we could have a Rock Eisteddfod entry. Rock Eisteddfod is, as well as promoting drug and alcohol free good times, a competition in which high schools put together an 8 minute dance performance ... Wait. This is so not about Britney Spears, is it? This should not be about me. By way of background, I love dress-ups, dance performances (no matter how naff), top hats and chair dancing. Since those early days as a 5 year old, I have jazz-handed my way around dance floors in clubs ever since. I love dance performances and I'm a woeful singer. Surely then, it makes sense that Britney Spears was one of my first "I wish I was her so hard" people. After last night, she still is!

The media barrage surrounding her visit to Australia disturbed me. For whatever reason, Britney Spears cops it in the press. For someone who has suffered a pretty public mental breakdown, the media is vicious and unabating. They should be supporting her return to health, rather than bagging out someone who is still clearly vulnerable - and an easy target. And yes, I got the feeling all her confidence is definitely not back there anymore. She was tentative with her dance moves, there was an over-reliance on head flicks to get her sexiness across, and her arms were not as snappy as you'd expect from someone with adrenaline - and confidence - coursing through their veins. She spoke to the audience twice. These are not the signs of a lazy performer, Media Contingent, she showed the signs of fear and nervousness. And I don't blame her, when there are people in the audience willing her to fail.

Fuck You, media. Seriously. Every single song she performed last night was amazing. There was not a moment where you thought... "Oh, ho hum I'm just going to nip to the loo during this less than special song". Hellz no! Everyone was riveted. What Britters lacked in dancing mojo was more than made up for by the overall spectacle - her smokin' hot backing dancers (and they were clearly a team urging her on to greatness which was awesome to see) the costuming (sequin heaven), lighting, fabulous staging and the screens that surrounded the stage. And these people who were supposedly "leaving" the performance because it sucked... I dont think so! More like running down to the standing area to get closer to an incredibly resilient, and undeniably talented woman. She lipsynched because she's not Beyonce Knowles who is an uber-talented freak of performance nature (whom I also adore). You could see the sweat on her, and I really don't give a toss about the non-live element of the song. It's not a fucking indie band - it's Britney Spears! High energy dance routines, theatrics, costume changes and the real-live woman in the flesh are what you pay to see, not a semi-motionless, soulful wringing of hands (when not playing guitar).

Anyway. Rant. She opened with Circus (following a circus performance) and closed with Hit Me Baby One More Time (I bought the knickers!) followed by Womaniser. Such a great end to what seriously was a fantastic performance. I was a little freaked by her speaking voice, which is rather chipmunk-like. I wished she'd disclosed some personal secrets, but obviously that was unlikely to occur on stage in front of 10,000 people. She performed Slave (a personal favourite) and there was a very raunchy interlude during which they played Marilyn Manson's version of 'Sweet Dreams' with the screens playing a very sexy looking masquerade-like orgy. That sounds naff, but it wasn't.

Here's the interlude from the London performance (a little hard to see because the screens are in a round like a Big Top).

There was a montage with a view of all her filmclips from her hits which was a great Britney Spears retrospective. I'm scouring You Tube for it as we speak. Or as I write, more accurately...

I get that Britney Spears is definitely not everyone's cup of tea. And honestly, as I watched the performance I did start to wonder if perhaps I'm not getting a little old for Britney but it was so enjoyable, and the talent on-stage was so great that it was an awesome escape into a different world. Everyone had fun, everyone was happy and they were bonding over a love of a certain type of music. Isn't that what music is about? Dragging down a performer who is such a force with her fans is ridiculous, and slagging off someone who is still clearly battling her demons is shameful. Power to Britney - I thought she was gorgeous and sexy and sweet and vulnerable which really is the persona that's she's promoted since she started out.