Tuesday 22 August 2006

Carey on: Mariah proves comeback's complete

Not too many pop singers can finesse massive crowds in their underwear. But Mariah Carey isn't your everyday pop singer. When Carey's 2001 release, "Glitter", bombed commercially, she probably couldn't have sold out your local Best Buy. Even in her intimates. But with the muscle of her recent Billboard blockbuster, "The Emancipation of Mimi", behind her, Carey had the TD Banknorth Garden packed with her usual fan base: kids, moms, dads, thugs, chicks, players and everyone else in between.

But a spectacle on par with Carey can't be unveiled without a proper intro. Her mere presence calls for a worthy opening act, which last night came from Jamaican dancehall dynamo Sean Paul, who is for many to reggae what Carey is to r&b. He racks up hit singles the way UPS drivers collect parking tickets. Jamming through dancehall hits such as "We Be Burnin' " and "Get It On", Paul energized people who came to hear him as well as Carey die-hards waiting patiently for their hero.

Carey's intro was hysterically dramatic. She emerged to a recording of her waxing poetic about how life is like a roller coaster. When her fans finished wiping their tears, they braced for the show. In a salute to rappers who have laid verses on her most popular tracks, Carey paid homage to MCs she's collaborated with. During "Heartbreaker", Jay-Z cameos filled the video monitors, and for "Fantasy", deceased rap star Ol' Dirty Bastard's verse was given a full salute.

But Carey's catalog is even more impressive than her vocals and the MCs who have complemented her choruses. For every dance track she flung in the beginning of her set, she unfurled a "Vision of Love" or "Hero". Her fame might have briefly faded from 2000 to 2003, but Carey's vocal chords never left the building.

No track triggered more tears and screams than "Always Be My Baby", a song Carey let her fans sing most of. Halfway ballads such as "Honey" inspired tears, but it took her hit "Hero" to trigger the night's most significant emotions.

There are rumors about how Carey resents her fans and how she disrespects the backroom talents who engineer her career. But at a venue as mammoth as the Garden, none of that seemed relevant so long as she reigned over the crowd as expected.

(Boston Herald)



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