October 21, 200816 yr Author Pop diva Dion wows fans at GM Place Jan Zeschky, Special to The Sun Published: Tuesday, October 21, 2008 VANCOUVER - A couple of calculated risks aren't really going to hurt when you're a multi-millionaire global superstar whose fans will always pack out somewhere like GM Place for two nights in a row (or Caesars Palace for more than 700 for that matter). Nevertheless, Celine Dion should perhaps be applauded for giving up her cushy turn in Vegas to throw herself back into the bumpy end of the music caravan, with a mammoth international tour supporting her latest studio album Taking Chances. The record marks a few new forays for Dion, with Middle Eastern and R&B influences to name just a couple, and the tour's stage show is markedly different from past ones too: most notably in its circular, "in the round" stage which has Dion surrounded by her adoring fans (who on tonight's evidence are mostly females or husbands, reluctant or otherwise). The idea here is presumably to humanize the diva, as it were, and, fittingly, during the show Dion makes use of two protruding catwalks to "mingle" with the audience. It's worth questioning how humanizing an influence doting devotees who can justify spending $520 for two hours of light entertainment really are, but that's a whole other thesis. So is this Dion at her craziest? Tonight's prologue, cast on a cube of screens enclosing centre-stage, certainly shows how crazy her itinerary has been, with highlights of the tour that started in Johannesburg in February. They're interspersed with images of a leathered-up Celine speeding through assorted landscapes in a classic car in an attempt to make it to tonight's show on time. It would definitely be some start were she to roar onstage in the selfsame car, but sadly the crowd are denied. Instead the cube peels back to reveal the lady herself raised high on a pedestal, skinny-limbed in a short, sequinned pink dress with locks flowing, blowing kisses to the crowd. Immediately that voice launches into the Roy Orbison classic "I Drove All Night" and the crowd's screaming and flash photography start in earnest. What follows is a seamless run-through of Dion's career highlights and picks from Taking Chances in a blinding extravaganza of athletic dance (Celine can be quite the mover herself) and a blizzard of video screens which fold into various shapes throughout the show. The stage itself is pretty cool too: revolving, escalating and transporting Dion in all directions as her band are raised up and down on internal elevators. She says little between songs, commenting only on her long hiatus from BC and vowing to make up for it tonight. She certainly gives it her best shot. Everything from the eye-catching dance routines (spanning salsa to breaking) to Dion's reliably soaring voice - which eases effortlessly from swoon to pitch-perfect yell on numbers like "The Power of Love" and "All By Myself" - seem choreographed to perfection, with neither a note nor a hair out of place. It's almost unreal - and this, unfortunately, is what lets Dion down again. Despite her attempts to get amid the crowd, to show she's really one of us, it's an all too familiarly distant affair, a typically consummate, polished performance by an experienced professional. So it's a chance taken that's not quite paid off. But then her fans will never mind, if 200 million sold albums and the sheer amount of screaming tonight are anything to go by. There's clearly an unquenchable craving for Celine's mix of good clean fun and lashings of schmaltz - the tear-jerking encore of "My Heart Will Go On", swelling 20,000 Titanic memories, fulfilling the latter requisite alone. Unlike a certain other Dion, there doesn't seem to be any chance of Celine relinquishing her pedestal any time soon. http://www.canada.com/vancouversun/news/st...e2-6983d19100c6 © Vancouver Sun Dion leaves Vancouver fans tugging at their hankies By Stuart Derdeyn - Province Music Critic, Vancouver Province Published: Tuesday, October 21, 2008 Why don't more tours put a comic on as the opening act? Given the great reception for Canadian singing and dancing impressionist Gordie Brown at Monday night's Céline Dion show, it just might be better than trying to find another musical act to put up in advance of the headliner. Of course, Brown is no newbie trying to break in. He's a Las Vegas Venetian Palazzo regular with a hit show of his own. If Net stories are true, he was invited to open all five months of the Taking Chances tour. With his safely humorous sendups of everyone from Usher to Elvis, he found the Céline fans' funny bones and garnered plenty of genuine applause. So, folks going to Tuesday's second of two shows should make the effort to arrive in time for the opener. Haven't said that in a long time. "Is that alright?" The roars from all sections of the Garage made it clear that being in the same room as Céline Dion singing "I Drove All Night" was far more than that. It was ultra-mega OK, awesome and then some. Right from the opening notes of the evening, it was clear that the 100 million-selling singing star from Charlemagne, Que., was planning on hitting all the right notes for the Célinistas who floated on every note. While she certainly took no chances to speak of, her first Vancouver performance in a decade was geared to get the faithful tugging at their hankies. On an in-the-round stage with two raised extension runways on either side of centre ice and four hydraulic risers to keep the band moving up and down, she pranced from one corner to the next at a breakneck pace. At times aided by some very nifty hidden conveyor belts, she did an impressive job of reaching as many people as she could. Four jumbotrons raised above the stage and an additional array of LED curtains and TVs meant there was no escaping the star. As far as her stage presence goes, five years and three million-plus punters through the gates for her Vegas extravaganza has given her even more confidence on stage. The little two-step dance skip and that whole raised-hand-pointing-off-into-space thing remains her trademark. But the pounding-her-chest move I always called C(éline)PR is gone. Now, she has the biggest white cape you have ever seen to go with thigh-high leather dominatrix boots and sparkling sequined dress for the big flamenco number that came before the tear-jerker ballad by Eric Carmen "All By Myself." While I'll never, ever be able to grasp how anyone can stomach her overwrought sentimentality and pop excess balladry or what it is in her music that has snared so many, she really gave the fans a Dion-esian spectacle. Nobody didn't get what they paid for and that is a sign of a great entertainer. Like it or not. I certainly didn't. But at least it was more lively than the new AC/DC album. Grade: A- sderdeyn@theprovince.com http://www.canada.com/theprovince/news/sto...31-720bfad68972 © Vancouver Province 2008 PICS oct 20th: http://www.celinedionforum.com/index.php?s...t&p=1229709& http://www.celinedionforum.com/index.php?s...t&p=1230527 Edited October 21, 200816 yr by SuuS
October 21, 200816 yr Author Céline Dion as subtle as a hand grenade By John Lucas At GM Place on Monday, October 20 It’s possible that Céline Dion has spent just a little too much time in Las Vegas. That would explain why her current touring show unfolds something like an outsized casino variety program, starting with a seemingly endless 25-minute set by the profoundly unfunny comedian Gordie Brown. Another Canadian who has done his share of time on the Strip, Brown offered impressions of the hottest young stars of today—you know, people like Vanilla Ice, Billy Ray Cyrus, and John Wayne. Way to stay au courant, Gordie! Not that Dion’s audience could care less about who’s making the charts—or having crude penises scrawled on them by Perez Hilton—in 2008. The singer herself makes no pretence of being on the cutting edge, and it was clear from the moment she appeared on a raised platform at centre stage that this would be a greatest-hits show, heavy on songs made famous by other performers. Clad in a lilac-coloured mini-dress, Dion opened with the one-two punch of “I Drove All Night” (a hit for Cyndi Lauper in 1989) and “The Power of Love” (Jennifer Rush in ’85, Laura Branigan in ’87, and, um, Nana Mouskouri and Air Supply and some other people no one cares about). It wasn’t long before she was onto “It’s All Coming Back to Me Now”, one of Jim Steinman’s more wrist-slittingly mock-operatic numbers, originally penned for Meat Loaf. That’s when it occurred to me that Steinman is a perfect match for Dion. Like Meat Loaf, the Quebec-born megastar is about as subtle as a hand grenade. She has a taste for songs with dramatic pauses and weepy crescendos, with big choruses that she can knock out of the park. Dion’s is a performance style that even the deaf could comprehend: you can tell when you’re supposed to be feeling something just by watching her screw up her eyes and throw her fist in the air. This emotional maximalism arguably reached its peak at the end of the monumentally self-pitying “All By Myself” (Eric Carmen, 1975), when Dion dropped to her knees like a Puccini heroine before collapsing altogether. It could only have been more over-the-top if she had ascended to the rafters and ignited a satchel charge, distributing herself over the crowd in a fine pink mist while the final notes rang out. This was a concert that was long on spectacle, complete with eight prodigiously skilled dancers who commandeered the stage during the many costume changes. The most impressive of these segments featured flamenco-inspired duets, which led into Dion’s recent single “Eyes on Me”. For that Middle Eastern–flavoured number, the singer strode about the stage with a white silk cloak billowing behind her, which made her look a little like an earthbound parachutist. The eye candy kept coming when the dancers reappeared mid-song, brandishing lengths of black-and-white fabric like toreadors’ capes. Visually arresting and (I’ll admit it) musically intriguing, “Eyes on Me” was easily the evening’s highlight. The most absurd moment, on the other hand, came when Dion sang “The Prayer” in a duet with Andrea Bocelli, who appeared via prerecorded video. Many in the audience greeted the appearance of the Italian tenor’s visage on the big screens with applause and whoops of approval. He couldn’t hear you, folks. Trust me on that one. Almost as strange was seeing Dion, who is perhaps the Platonic antithesis of a rock ’n’ roller, lead an audience in a sing-along version of “We Will Rock You”. Of course, that was just a warm-up for Queen’s “The Show Must Go On”, redeemed only by the fact that Dion had the decency not to digitally resurrect Freddie Mercury for a virtual duet. Speaking of things that go on (and on), the final encore was the inevitable tearjerker—need I name it?—which came complete with pennywhistle, white candles, and an introductory Titanic montage. I’d like to be able to say it got me pondering the human spirit’s will to survive despite the most trying of circumstances—you know, sinking ocean liners and Céline Dion concerts and such—but mostly it made the untamed cynic in me wonder how so much effort could be poured into something that inspired so little genuine emotion. Quite sarcastic :angry: Edited October 21, 200816 yr by SuuS
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