After a birthday celebration of 4 great days at the Magic Kingdom, we went to the Honda Center in Anaheim to watch Danity Kane, the Pussy Cat Dolls and Christina Aguilera. Officially, it was the Back to Basics tour, some men might have referred to it as the Lots of Estrogen tour.
Danity Kane began the night. The five girl singing group who were half dressed provided everyone with 15 or so minutes of singing, dancing, bumping and grinding. I know I am aging because I only recognized one song that they sang. Sadly, I can't give them a proper review. But who are we kidding, will the name Danity Kane be around 5 years from now? Oh my gosh, I just felt myself turning into an adult.
Next up on the entertainment card, the Pussy Cat Dolls. Let's see, there were six ladies who were a quarter dressed and gave the crowd about 30-45 minutes of singing, dancing, bumping and grinding. See a trend here? What I do know is the newest dance move is sitting on a chair while holding your index finger with your teeth and looking up towards the ceiling. Man oh man, maybe 15 years ago I would have thought the Pussy Cat Dolls were the next big thing kind of like my feelings for the New Kids on the Block...and where are they now?
Finally, it was time for Christina. I had made a choice to see Christina over Justin Timberlake. One, because she is a fantastic singer and two, I knew my hubby would enjoy Christina's costume changes just a wee bit more than Justin's boring old guy look. And I was right on both accounts. Too many female solo artists and female groups are only up on stage to dance and sing with a background track. No doubt, my girl Christina can sing.
While we waiting for the petite, platinum blond, Veronica Lake look-a-like to make her grand entrance, we gazed at a ruffled, white, satin curtain while classics played over the loud speaker. When the lights went down, the curtain rose. A set of stairs were center stage, big band to the left, back up singers to the right and dancers to follow. Dressed in a white suit (which not many women can pull off), she appeared at the top of the steps and the show began. "Ain't No Other Man" got the kids up and dancing. (Thankfully, we had adults in front of us who sat practically the entire show. It was our dream come true.)
The show was filled with visual stimulation, from background video screens where poignant messages were projected to a circus scene with simple cirque de soliel acrobatics. The highlight of the circus portion of the evening happened when she invited a young man up from the audience. He walked up willingly and then found himself strapped to a target on a large board, like those where guys would throw knives at suspecting volunteers as they spun around. Well, there was no spinning, but plenty of whip lashing. (Note: the whips were rods with ropes attached. The young man wasn't harmed in the event, rather quite excited from what we could see on the big screens.) She proceeded to serenade him with her new song called "Nasty, Naughty Boy" which contains the lyric;
'cause I wanna give you a little taste of the sugar below my waist, you nasty boy...
She was so adorable with her black bustier, thigh high black boots and black mask. It was like a chapter out of any Madonna concert, yet Christina did it with a sexy 1950's flair while hitting all her high notes.
As for the rest of the concert, it was just amazing. Here is a performer who can go from a fast paced gospel number to sitting solo on stage with a spotlight, pouring out a song about her once abused mother. She focused mostly on her new material from her Back To Basics double cd. She made sure to include some of her older stuff like my favorite "Dirrty", that's right with two r's because it's just that filthy. She rose up from the floor of the stage on a horse from a carousel while her dancers did their thang around her. This time, she kept it a little more Dirty with one r. (I guess that is what married life will do to you, calms ya down to one r.) My other new favorite "Candyman", which has an Andrews sisters feel, brought an all American feeling to the crowd with a salute at the end.
Another outstanding experience watching a 90 minute show of non stop entertainment. She has once again reinvented herself, only this time she is a good girl providing us with old fashioned sex appeal. Ain't No Other (Wo)Man like Christina.
