Kansas City, USA january 3rd

Posted January 3, 200916 yr

1st stop after holiday break :thumbup:

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Created 16 yr16 yr
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January 4, 200916 yr

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Aww this is so sweet :wub:

HPjAWX8-tLs

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DkoLoc3V1Tk...re=channel_page IDAN

TPOL+Speech

TCH CLip Beginning

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kas0Nwhezug...re=channel_page TCH Clip

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sNNten345HQ...re=channel_page TLYM clip

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IrZLzwx7TTE...re=channel_page EOM

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U_45739wEA8...re=channel_page ABMS Clip

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lUgKrWBEq0o...re=channel_page IYA Clip

Fan's Flowers + Kisses

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lyXXQK631hU...re=channel_page My Love

MHWGO + Final

She may not be the queen of living divas (Aretha Franklin and Tina Turner are working that one out), but Celine Dion is arguably as popular or successful as any of them.

Before she took the stage at Sprint Center on Saturday, a video montage showed footage of her playing to enormous crowds all over the planet -- crowds that looked 10 times as large as the Sprint Center crowd. Her legions of fans are fervid. And they are apparently patient, too.

Approximately 16,000 people showed up Saturday; and many had been holding their tickets since they went on sale in November 2007 -- a year in advance. The show was originally scheduled for Nov. 15 (two months ago) but was moved when Dion had some vocal malfunction that needed healing. No problem. The place was still nearly sold-out. What's 14 months when you haven't seen your favorite diva in almost 10 years?

I'll assume nearly all of those who showed up will say it was worth the wait and the money. (The men watching the Colts/Chargers game in the sports bar don't count.) The show lasted nearly two hours; it featured plenty of Vegas-style flash and glitz; it included most of Dion's best-known songs; and it showcased that grandiose voice, which is too big for the average basketball arena.

Her voice is the deal-sealer. She rips hefty, high and hard notes effortlessly and fluidly. And she carries the average melody flawlessly. There's not a lot of soul in her act, but there's plenty of muscle and energy.

Her dance moves are more amateur than not, although she rocked a few high-karate kicks, like David Lee Roth in "Jump." But most of the time when she busts a move, Dion looks like a teenage girl dancing like a rock chick in front of her bedroom mirror: some air guitar, some head-banging, lots of fist pumping. She's so un-self-conscious about it, it's all kind of refreshing and endearing.

Her ace up the sleeve is the way she connects with her fans, the way she tries to make herself one of "them" (my quotes). They wait on her every word, and they seem to take heart in everything she sings and says, especially the personal stuff.

She expressed some plain-talk regret for calling in sick in November. She talked about her 81-year-old mother, who is on tour with her, and her 8-year-old son, who is, too. She accepted floral donations from a few fans, and then kissed them all as a thank you. After the show, she walked through the crowd, shaking hands and saying howdy, like Barack Obama.

That voice and that personality sell the franchise, but they need music, too, and she picks songs that suit both: skyscraping anthems and tender ballads about love, loss and the power of life. Two of her songs had the word mountain in the title, which is appropriate. When she uncorks herself into a tidal wave (like "Love Moves Mountains") she can move a few tons of earth, too.

She brought with her a big band and backup singers and sexy dancers, who filled in when Dion disappeared beneath the stage for a wardrobe change. The stage was a "round," with two long runways that led to the seats on opposite sides of the arena. If you saw the Dixie Chicks at Kemper Arena in 2003, you would have recognized this setup.

The highlights? It's hard to say. "My Love," the Linda Perry song (not McCartney's) was nice. The rip-roaring version of Heart's "Alone" was good. And the first encore, "River Deep, Mountain High," was a bona-fide high-voltage dance/video extravaganza.

But as devoted as her fans are, they have turned her concerts into a spectator sport. I was on the floor, among the devotees who shelled out $150 per seat, and no one within five rows of me stood up until the very end, when she almost ordered them to. Instead, they sat, watched, admired, cheered and applauded -- even during the "soul medley," which included some snippets of James Brown, Chaka Khan, Aretha Franklin and Stevie Wonder.

The crowd did wake up at the end, when she played the big song: the gargantuan closing theme to the gargantuan romantic drama -- the "Gone With the Wind" of the 1990s. I saw her sing "My Heart With Go On" in 1999 at Kemper, and this time the response was just as cathartic and loud, as if it were the one moment everyone had been waiting for.

- Timothy Finn, The Star