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Aguilera kicks it old school with jazz |
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Wednesday, 07 March 2007 |
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 A curvy silhouette appeared on a jumbo screen above the Qwest Center
Omaha stage. A saxophone lilted a practice arpeggio, the audience
quieted, and the ushers vanished.
Then a moving staircase pushed a petite woman to the stage front, and a spotlight illuminated her body.
It was Christina Aguilera, all jazzed up.
She wore a skintight white suit and fedora that covered her thick blond
curls. A long white fur draped over her right shoulder. She bent down
on her knees and belted, "I don't know what you did, boy, but you had
it. And I've been hooked ever since."
Eight dancers launched onto the stage as she sang her Grammy-winning hit "Ain't No Other Man."
The often-roaring crowd - mostly teens and 20-something women - hung on
Aguilera's every lyric as she unleashed an impressive four-octave
voice. A fantastic horn section and backing singers supported her
vocals.
After two songs and costume changes into her 90-minute set, she greeted Omaha.
"It's so good to be in Omaha," she said. "Thank you for sharing your evening with me tonight."
The audience went crazy as 10,000 fans sang, clapped and danced along
to remix songs "Come on Over Baby (All I Want Is You)" and "What a Girl
Wants."
Omaha is the third stop in the U.S. leg of Aguilera's 41-city Back to
Basics tour. Most of the show reveled in the throwback jazz vibe found
in the double-disc album for which the tour is named.
During the second half of her performance, Aguilera turned the stage
into a three-ring circus. There were acrobats, flame twirlers and men
on stilts. Aguilera, in black lace chaps and a mini halter dress,
emerged on a carousel horse surrounded by pole dancers and sang the
raunchy song "Dirrty."
"Don't look at me that way cuz I'm not going to change," she sang.
Aguilera may be a married woman who cleaned up her act, but she proved last night that she's still a little naughty.
"I'm looking for a special male participant," she told the crowd. A guy
standing near the front row tossed his blue-striped shirt on the stage.
"OK," she said. "I'm going to keep this."
Her dancers, instead, pulled a different man onstage. That guy was
Michael McManus, a 22-year-old student at the University of Nebraska at
Omaha. He was strapped to a large circus wheel and teased by Aguilera
throughout the song "Nasty Naughty Boy."
"It was insane," he said. "I was sitting up in the balcony talking to a
friend when a woman asked me if I wanted to be on the show. They
strapped me to the wheel while Christina danced. She was like over me
and touching my stomach."
After the song, he was ushered to the backstage where Aguilera gave him a signed picture.
"As I was walking out, a guy offered me $300 for it," he said. "Instead
I gave it to two elementary-age girls sitting near my concert seat
because they were huge fans."
Later in the concert, Aguilera took her audience to church with "Makes Me Wanna Pray" and "Candyman."
With songs like "Oh Mother," "Hurt," and "Welcome," there's no doubt
that she could join the ranks of Whitney Houston, Mariah Carey or Mary
J. Blige. She's a powerhouse vocalist.
Her opening acts Danity Kane and Pussycat Dolls were pretty hot, too.
Danity Kane got the crowd roused with a brief performance, including their hit single "Show Stopper."
The Pussycat Dolls stepped onto the stage in dominatrix gear and wildly
shook their hips as they sang hits "Don't Cha" and "I Don't Need a
Man." They commanded the stage as if they were headlining it.
Nicole Scherzinger, the lead vocalist for the Dolls, runs the show, but
to prove she isn't the only doll with talent, she stepped off stage for
a number. The five remaining Dolls managed.
"We loved the Pussycat Dolls," said April Daharsh, 25, of Omaha. "We
danced throughout the whole concert. People told us to sit down, but we
told people we paid just as much as they did and we wanted to dance."
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