britney spears circus tour 2009

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Whips with everything

W atching the first of eight O2 concerts of her Circus album tour, I am reminded that Britney Spears is many things, but she is also the only global pop star I've ever wanted to hug - perhaps followed by tucking her up in bed with a mug of Horlicks and the assurance that despite everything (horrible marriages, lost children, paparazzi chases, head shaving, being the most Googled person on earth), everything is going to work out fine; that at 27 she may have found herself cast as the Frances Farmer of pop but some of us are aware that the world colluded in driving her mad in the first place.

What a shame then that the Circus show, while not calamitous (like the infamous MTV Awards "comeback"), was so ... well, so-so. Not bad - just boring, lacklustre, underpowered - which, in my book, is far worse.

The show opens on three stages (three-ring circus, get it?). After a display of assorted clowns, dwarves and acrobats (whose repetitious sub-Barnum japery becomes seat-gnawingly tedious as the night wears on), suddenly La Spears is there in person, flaxen-haired, garbed in ringmaster regalia, cracking a whip, male dancers crawling subserviently at her feet.

Launching into "Circus" ("There are two types of people in the world/ Those who entertain, and those who observe"), the sense of metaphor, of Spears's life as a circus, is instantly clear. As is the symbolism for the next song, "Piece of Me", her attack on the paparazzi, delivered from inside a cage like the trapped tormented animal she clearly perceives herself to be - Britney apparently forgetting that she once dated a paparazzo.

It soon becomes clear that this is to be a set dominated by the "darker", more recent material, Circus and the previous album Blackout featuring songs such as "Radar", "Ooh Ooh Baby", "If U Seek Amy" and "Freakshow", with a smattering of In the Zone, and the big hits ("Hit Me Baby" and the awesome "Toxic").

It also becomes clear that - how to put this? - Vocoder or not, Spears may not be troubled by an urge to perform her concerts entirely live. Nor could she claim to need to conserve her energy for dancing. Gay icon she may be, but if Madame Indolence isn't disappearing down trapdoors, leaving us at the mercy of her dancers, and their boring tumbling (if you've seen one bench-jump, you've seen them all), she is being pushed around the stages on giant props on castors. Dancing? It's an event when she does her own walking.

In fairness, Britney is wearing killer heels, and what could be the vilest costumes in the history of live performance. Note to costume department: Spears is a beautiful female who would be flattered by most outfits, but she is not one of the 0.999 per cent of "hard-body" knotty-muscled humanity who should be sent out to face a 23,000-strong O2 crowd in what amounts to their bra and knickers.

As it is, Spears often looks under-dressed and self-conscious. All made worse by the "Madonna-circa-Erotica" emphasis of the choreography. If Britney isn't acting out "Touch of My Hand" a tad too literally, she's splaying her legs, wriggling in leather, and, at one bizarre point, engaged in complicated airborne frottage with several male dancers.

The end effect is less "out there" and "dangerous" and more "suburban swingers' party gone horribly wrong". Whoever told Britney that "sex sells" should perhaps follow up with "less is more". The exception being "Get Naked", an intense claustrophobic dance-floor classic, and for my money, Britney's finest moment of recent years

However, best of all is Everytime, which Spears performs sitting on a giant umbrella swing in the air. And I mean, literally performs - here you can actually hear her voice - breathless, cracked, imperfect, but somehow exquisite.

Back in the mists of time, I wrote that Spears was "famously one of the 'oldest' teenagers pop has ever produced, almost middle-aged in terms of focus and determination". However, here, performing "Everytime" she seems heartbreakingly vulnerable and young.

This is the Britney I wish we'd seen more of at the O2 - an honest unadorned "fallen angel" with dirty, broken wings - rather than the robotically sexed-up Britney who comes on, lip-synching for the encore, "Womanizer", in a kinky policewoman's uniform, waving a truncheon.

One is left with the feeling that the "Everytime" side - the soft side - has become the true dark side for Britney Spears. However, for her to become the artist she deserves to be, it is essential we see more of it. As for Circus, it seems there were too many sideshows, and the main act got lost along the way.

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Britney Spears’ “Circus”: A Last Look Behind the Scenes Before Tour Kick-Off in New Orleans

By Daniel Kreps

Daniel Kreps

After months of pre-production that came with custody battles, choreographer changes and restraining orders, Britney Spears ‘ Circus tour finally kicks off tonight, March 3rd, in New Orleans, Louisiana. (Come back tomorrow for photos from the big debut gig!). Brit fansite Breathe Heavy has been all over the anticipated tour in the days leading up to its debut, posting videos of dress rehearsals and the Perez Hilton video that kicks off the show (watch it above).

As we reported yesterday, the set list is split up into four acts: Circus, House of Fun (Anything Goes), Freakshow/Peepshow and Electro Circ, plus a two-song encore. Fans are already pounding their collective fists about the lack of “Gimme More,” “Kill the Lights” and all the ballads, but by some miracle “Get Naked (I’ve Got A Plan)” made the final cut so we’re not complaining. As previously revealed, the stage will be set up like a three-ring circus, with a bunch of Cirque Du Soleil-ish going on around Britney. Also, it’s been reported that at some point, a brief magic show includes Britney getting sawed in half, probably before “Piece of Me” because that would make sense from a lyrical standpoint.

And as the above video shows, there’s a Cher-like collection of outfits, ranging from the boring ringleader suit to something that looks like it came from Cleopatra’s closet to some really burlesque-looking “clothes.” It’s kinda fun to try and predict what outfit matches up with what song, like the Ringleader is obviously for “Circus” and the most revealing has to be “Get Naked.” And then there’s tour merchandise : Up for sale are “Womanizer” shirts that look like Ed Hardy made them, complete with fake tattoo sleeves. They’re also selling “You Want A Piece of Me” shirts, probably a holdover from the Blackout tour that never happened.

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Music Review | Britney Spears

She’s Back, and Now She’s Angry

By Jon Caramanica

• March 12, 2009

UNIONDALE, N.Y. — Eighteen months ago Britney Spears took the stage at the 2007 MTV Video Music Awards and, it surely seemed, doused her career in lighter fluid and struck a match. In her brief performance she looked fatigued, unhappy and disoriented. With Ms. Spears already in the middle of a hostile run in the tabloids, this was something worse than self-injury; it was a speeding car with no driver. Surely no good ending was possible.

That she might attempt a tour on the scale of the one that arrived at the Nassau Coliseum here on Wednesday night would have appeared laughable and worrying. That she pulled it off was nothing short of a shock.

Even though Ms. Spears is essentially operating under the auspices of her father, Jamie Spears, who last year was granted legal conservatorship over her, she is 27 now, a mother of two and finally in righteous possession of the anger and frustration that have long animated some of her best music, but never her persona.

Not that she was sneering her way through this warp-speed-quick hour-and-a-half performance. This was less a concert — the vocals appeared to be recorded — than a Las Vegas-style revue of intimidating complexity. Throughout, though she spoke little, Ms. Spears appeared radiant and unfettered, often smiling and never uncommitted.

There was efficient, expert use of a huge stage set in the round, featuring about a dozen backup dancers choreographed impressively by Jamie King. Ms. Spears’s dancing is half as strong as it once was, but she achieved a lot with small gestures, and with attention drawn in so many different directions, it didn’t matter. She was being accommodated, which freed her up to be natural.

The rigid execution extended to image management as well: Ms. Spears’s handlers denied access to photographers except under the strictest of usage terms.

From the tour’s title — “The Circus Starring Britney Spears” — on down, the night was rife with blunt-force imagery: Ms. Spears locked in a cage and working her way out, Ms. Spears suspended in a picture frame, Ms. Spears as a ringmaster wielding a whip. During many segments of the show she and her dancers wore bondage-inspired outfits reminiscent of early-’90s modes of sexual transgression.

And there was no room for reflection; the past had moved by far too quickly to dwell on it. Ms. Spears performed a version of her first hit, “ ... Baby One More Time,” and, in a video montage before the encore, flashed through scenes and images from her entire career. (Her kiss with Madonna at the 2003 MTV Video Music Awards received the biggest cheer.) But otherwise there were no references to her first two albums. Any song with even a whiff of naïveté was stricken from the record — no “I’m Not a Girl, Not Yet a Woman,” no “Sometimes,” no “From the Bottom of My Broken Heart.”

Instead she leaned heavily on the surprisingly strong “Circus” (Jive), her sixth album, released late last year, and her previous album, “Blackout,” from 2007: songs about empowerment and disempowerment set to frantic production. Rarely varying from script, she resisted deep reading, though midshow she briefly erupted into a military shout. “I don’t know what you’ve been told,” she said. “This mama is in control.” She seemed certain of it.

Britney Spears performs on Friday and Saturday at the Prudential Center in Newark and on Monday at the TD Banknorth Garden in Boston. Information: britneyspears.com.

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Britney Spears' Circus arrives in town as her tour gets underway

It was the moment Britney Spears  fans have been waiting five years for. On Tuesday night the pop princess made her triumphant return to the stage, kicking off her highly anticipated Circus tour in her New Orleans hometown.

The 90-minute show featured tumbling acrobats, clowns, jets of fire and a magician who made Britney disappear from the Big Top stage.

Broken down into four acts - Circus, House of Fun, Freakshow/Peepshow and Electro Circ - the show also included typically energetic dance routines from the 27-year-old performer who changed costumes various times during the 16-song set.

And fans were evidently delighted by the performance, which followed a set from supporting act The Pussycat Dolls.

"Oh my god, she looks amazing," gushed one concert-goer. "And the show's a spectacle – it really looks like a three-ring circus."

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Britney Spears Setlist at The O2 Arena, London, England

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Tour: The Circus Starring Britney Spears Tour statistics Add setlist

• Act 1: The Circus
• Song played from tape Welcome to the Circus ( Video introduction ) Play Video
• Circus Play Video
• Piece of Me Play Video
• Song played from tape Thunderstorm ( Performance interlude ) Play Video
• Radar Play Video
• Act 2: House of Fun
• Song played from tape Martial Arts Segue ( Performance interlude ) Play Video
• Ooh Ooh Baby / Hot as Ice Play Video
• Boys ( The Co-Ed Remix ) Play Video
• Song played from tape Sound-Off ( Performance interlude ) Play Video
• If U Seek Amy Play Video
• Me Against the Music ( Bollywood remix ) Play Video
• Everytime Play Video
• Act 3: Freakshow / Peepshow
• Song played from tape Everybody's Looking for Something ( Video interlude, features "Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This") by Eurythmics ) Play Video
• Freakshow Play Video
• Get Naked (I Got a Plan) Play Video
• Song played from tape Britney's Hotline ( Performance interlude, contains elements of "Breathe on Me", with excerpts of "Boys", "I'm a Slave 4 ) Play Video
• Breathe on Me Play Video
• Touch of My Hand Play Video
• Act 4: Electro Circ
• Song played from tape Band Jam Segue ( Band interlude, contains elements of "Circus" ) Play Video
• Do Somethin' Play Video
• I'm a Slave 4 U Play Video
• Song played from tape Heartbeat ( Dance interlude ) Play Video
• Toxic Play Video
• ...Baby One More Time Play Video
• Song played from tape Break the Ice ( Video interlude ) Play Video
• Womanizer Play Video
• Song played from tape Circus ( Reprise: The Bow ) Play Video

Edits and Comments

8 activities (last edit by MusicNation , 8 Nov 2016, 12:15 Etc/UTC )

Songs on Albums

• Get Naked (I Got a Plan)
• Ooh Ooh Baby / Hot as Ice
• Piece of Me
• Breathe on Me
• Me Against the Music
• Touch of My Hand
• If U Seek Amy
• I'm a Slave 4 U
• ...Baby One More Time
• Do Somethin'

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2009 Britney Spears The Circus Concert Tour

Openers: Jordin Sparks, Kristina DeBarge, Girlicious & One Call (on select dates)

Current Britney Spears Tour Dates | Complete 2009 Artist Tour Archive

The Circus Starring: Britney Spears (2009)

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