As anyone who has ever watched So You Think You Dance will know, there's a small but very noticeable difference between a good dancer and a great dancer. Britney Spears is a very good dancer. And yet, despite being the supposed star of a Rogers Arena performance that sent the vast majority of the crowd home happy, she still spent almost the entire show being upstaged by her remorselessly spectacular dance crew.
In fact, coming less than a week after Rihanna delivered a pair of concerts in this very building that highlighted both her superstar quality and how exciting 21st century pop music can be, the 2011 model Britney Spears appeared hopelessly outmoded on almost every level.
Way back in the last century, 1998 to be precise, Britney Spears rose to global prominence on the strength of her charming girl-next-doorness. Thirteen years later, that same quality, her ordinariness, is her undoing. After so long under so much scrutiny, it's hard to believe that Britney is still a few months from 30. By any criteria, she's still smoking hot. And yet, surrounded by brilliant dance talents, there's a total absence of magnetism or charisma. She's the least interesting person on stage.
If the show was even slightly about her vocals or the music, Brit's performing limitations might not have been so obvious. But with the focus on the choreography (amazing), stage sets (suitably spectacular) and multiple costume changes (good fun – especially the camp cops at the start), the music took a distant fourth place. Where Rihanna had a full band, including virtuoso guitarist Nuno Bettencourt, Britney had two anonymous keyboardists playing with themselves in the darkness. Sonically, it was a mess. Lost under the persistent thud of a muddy kick drum it was too tough to tell which parts of the show Britney was singing live and which parts were mimed. It barely mattered. The vocals were so processed they might as well have come straight from a leaked mp3.
Musically, the only real points of interest came from a stripped down and toughened up reworking of ‘Hit Me Baby One More Time', a sultry version of ‘He About To Lose Me' and a techno-infused ‘Toxic'. Apart from that it was a stream of interchangeable Euro-house hits, differentiated only by the clothes (or lack of) on the dancers' backs and the props joining them on stage.
The dancers were the stars of what was still a spectacular show. Four ultra-hardbodied male dancers raised themselves into handstands while Britney writhed around unconvincingly on a psychiatrist's couch during the aforementioned ‘He About To Lose Me'. The breaking during ‘Big Fat Bass' was world class. When Britney performed ‘Don't Let Me Be The Last To Know' from a chair suspended six metres above the stage, the cheers were for the gymnast pulling shapes holding onto her seat below.
All this isn't to say that people left Rogers Arena disappointed. The fans were on their feet from beginning to end, and there was barely a butt not being shaken during the encore of ‘Till the World Ends.' But as Britney flew over the crowd at its climax, this time framed by a pair of angel's wings, sterner critics must have been wondering where the teen idol nearing 30, the singer whose vocals are distorted beyond recognition, goes next.
One of those critics was the eight-year-old girl sat behind your correspondent. She'd had someone write Britney's name on her face earlier and was screaming her excitement as the show kicked off.
By the encore, she'd made her opinion known. She'd fallen asleep.
