Too much style over substance in this megastar’s big comeback
Shania Twain O2 Arena, London
Shania Twain was queen of country pop, a global superstar, one of the topselling female artists of all time when she was forced to retire in 2004 due to vocal problems. She has made a triumphant return this year with a dazzling, ridiculously entertaining show. Yet swathing her vocals in Auto-tune effects and pre-recorded backing tracks does not suggest her voice problems are over. On Tuesday night at London’s O2, Twain put on an utterly amazing live show. The only question was: how much was really live?
To be fair, I doubt any fan would come away feeling short-changed. The staging was state of the razzle-dazzle art, all eye-popping LED imagery and constantly shifting mobile platforms, populated by a band of cheery, dancing musicians ascending and descending in surprising configurations, suddenly appearing out of the floor and vanishing back into the set with their guitars, fiddles and drums.
Twain was the sharp centre of the action, looking fantastic at 53 in a series of bold, yet elegant, costumes that crossed vampish cowgirl with haute couture. She chatted amiably in an amused croaky voice (“People are my favourite things in life! I love chatting!”) and belted out her big hits with gusto. Even if the croak suspiciously vanished in a digitally tuned double-tracked flux whenever she cued a song, you can’t take anything away from the songs.
Twain rose to fame writing powerpacked hits that crossed country musical tropes with sleek pop rock, and she performed everything her fans could have wanted to hear. Popping up on a platform in the middle of the arena, fake strumming an acoustic guitar, she led 20,000 people in a glorious singalong of Still the One – which is still one of the greatest love songs ever written. That Don’t Impress Me Much and Man! I Feel Like a Woman! retain their irrepressibly joyous momentum. A fistful of songs from last year’s chart-topping comeback album, Now, were cheerfully received.
It was an evening of fun musical entertainment, choreographed to perfection and staged more like a Las Vegas revue or Broadway show than a rock concert. And it was the most fake live gig I have seen since Britney Spears last brought her all-dancing, all-miming production to town.
Twain’s energetic sextet was more like a cheerleading troupe. A good rule of thumb is that if there are fewer musicians on stage than instruments coming out of the speakers, then they are playing to track. There was no bass guitar, no piano or keyboard player and the otherwise impressive drummer spent at least half of the show with her mobile kit being moved around by stage hands. The country fiddlers were fantastic but what they were effectively doing was adding a patina of virtuosity. I am not even suggesting that Twain wasn’t singing live, just that her vocal was enveloped in the protective cotton wool of pre-recordings and boosted with digital effects to ensure every note was pristine.
Does anybody care about this stuff anymore, apart from a few curmudgeonly music critics? I suspect not. These kind of musical aids are endemic in big productions now (though all deny it). This, in the 21st century, is the business of show. Still, it don’t impress me much. If I was paying top ticket price to see my favourite singer, the least I would expect is to hear her sing.