HBO has Britney Spears performing live from the MGM Grand in
Las Vegas, on November 18. In case you didn't already know,
this show will be her very first live television concert. Las
Vegas will be just one stop on Britney's 2001 US Tour.
Britney's Las Vegas
show Sunday night gave fans - and 800,000 U.S. soldiers
stationed around the world plenty of fodder for sweet dreams.
From her sequence
Elvis white jumpsuit, to the fans dressed as Elvis in the
front row, Britney put on definitely Vegas show. The concert
began with a host informing the audience of the night's theme:
Dream within A Dream. Turning on a metal wheel, that looked
like something out of a post-apocalyptic vampire movie, a
black lace-clad Britney emerged from the fiery stage singing
"Oops I Did it Again." Her black and white-costumed dancers
join her for the next number, "Crazy" After several futuristic
dance sequences, the show took a childlike turn as a
storyteller (played by Jon Voigt) tells young Britney a
bedtime story, inspiring a dream where she becomes a mystical
music-box dancer
With "Lucky", Britney
showed her true American
colors, wearing a white
fur coat lined with Old
Glory. Before returning to
her music box, Britney
re-enacts one of her
earlier hits, "Sometimes."
Britney shows her
dichotomy by following the
bedtime story bit with the
sexy nightclub act "Boys."
The song showed us
Britney's naughtier side,
with racy dancing and
risqué clubby costumes.
Britney paused during the
show to give a heartfelt
statement about how proud
she is of her nation and
its brave armed forces.
She spoke specifically to
soldiers in Texas, her
native Louisiana, and
California. The troops
echoed their support of
Britney with shouts and
cheers. "It's because of
the hard work and the
sacrifices you make that
give me the freedom to do
what I love to do, which
is to perform," she told
them, before singing her
soon-to-be-release single
"I'm Not a Girl, Not Yet a
Woman." For "I Love Rock
and Roll," Britney
channeled the spirit of
Janice Joplin, trying on
the sixties vibe as a
style. She and her "band"
rose from the stage on a
fiery platform, hovering
over the audience before
bungee jumping into a
dance sequence that defies
gravity. She then stopped
to ask the audience if
they, like her, have ever
felt like a slave to the
music before delivering a
reprise of her
jungle-inspired
performance of "I'm a
Slave 4 U". Although she
was without a snake,
Britney made up for the
lack of reptiles by
slithering across the
stage and climbing up
poles.
The similarities between
the lives of Britney and
Elvis, two of the most
successful acts in the
history of pop music, are
striking. Born in
Mississippi more than 45
years apart, their lives
have followed a similar
course, encompassing not
only No 1 singles,
Grammys, wealth and fame,
but substance abuse,
divorce and a dubious
attraction to Las Vegas.
Last week, Spears launched
her new album, Blackout,
to critical applause, but
after a year of
increasingly unpredictable
behaviour, failed rehab
stints, attacks on the
paparazzi and an ongoing
child custody battle, it
remains to be seen whether
the Princess of Pop can
navigate the immense
celebrity - and attendant
excesses - that destroyed
the King.
Both
performers owe much of
their ascent to stardom to
the marketing of their
sexual allure. The Elvis
controversy was sparked by
a performance on The
Milton Berle Show in 1956,
during which he performed
a cover of Hound Dog, a
song which, like Spears'
1998 debut ... Baby, One
More Time, carried blatant
sexual undertones. But it
was the performance as
much as the lyrics. With
Elvis it was the pelvis,
the seductive shake that
drove female fans to
distraction and saw one of
his early TV performances,
on the Ed Sullivan Show,
censored so that viewers
saw only Presley's upper
body. Britney, of course,
skipped into the public
consciousness
provocatively clad in
school uniform and
pigtails. Her currency was
raised by the disclosure
that for all her saucy
cavorting, she was in fact
a good little church-going
girl and a virgin to boot.
There have been
other visual similarities
along the way - the
hair-cutting for example:
Elvis was publicly shorn
for his stint in the
military; Britney, for
less explicable reasons,
wielding the clippers
herself before the baying
paparazzi. They have both,
too, demonstrated a love
for cat-suits and sequins,
and last week, as Britney
unveiled her newly
augmented pout, there was
an echo of the King's
famous lip-curl.
