STRATFORD — It’s definitely a new and hotter Nelly out there.
Based on last night’s show by Canadian superstar Nelly Furtado at the Ovation Music Festival, she is the real deal when it comes to getting looser and happier on stage.
“This is my first time playing this in Canada,” Furtado announced early in her set before launching into All Good Things (Come to an End), the closing track on the hit album of summer 2006, Loose.
Before that, Furtado had been welcomed to the stage before a crowd estimated at 10,000 fans by two of Toronto’s hip-hop and R&B icons, MC Saukrates and soul diva Divine Brown. She had swivelled around the stage on impossible stilleto heels and slid out of her dark jacket for a daring, bare-armed look on a cool night.
She saved Promiscuous, her summer smash, for the encore. Its arrival after a sexy giggle from Furtado ensured that the set crossed over from the too-short to the Nelly adequate of an hour-plus.
“This is the hit of the year . . . let’s celebrate,” Furtado said before Saukrates joined her, stepping in beautifully for producer Timbaland. The band and dancers hit the groove and for a few amazing minutes a Perth County field shook like a corner of clubland.
Did I mention that the lightning that had flashed earlier over Perth County while Furtado and her crew waited in the tour bus went away for good, leaving the sky to the clouds and the moon — and the ground and the crowd to queen Nelly.
Memories are dim of Furtado at the Western Fair earlier in the decade on a September night when she was riding I’m Like a Bird and her a slightly goofy, sexy shyness. But this critic is sure the Nelly of 2000 and 2001 would never have shouted out so confidently: “Are you having a good festival so far? Will you help me sing this? Who knows the words?” Last night, it was clear Furtado knew the answer to the first two questions had to be “yes” and with a Bird chorus of thousands at the Ovation fest, the answer to the third question was “we all do.”
Back in the day, she didn’t have Saukrates and Brown — who sang a couple of her own hits during the wait for Nelly — to put Bird on a new, funky flight path.
Landing Furtado was a coup for the Ovation fest. She was in New York for the big Fashion Rocks benefit earlier in the week and will not be playing a major Canadian concert for the rest of the year, organizers say.
It is the second edition of outdoor, all-Canadian rock fest in a city known for Shakespeare and the Stratford Festival as its summer attractions. The Tragically Hip headline tonight and Bachman Cummings are tomorrow’s headliners. Ovation has a different, bigger location this year — with thousands of fans pressing up to the stage to get closer to the hot new pop and hip-hop queen.
Furtado’s double-platinum album Loose (Universal) is one of the summer’s biggest hits and has sold more than 250,000 copies in Canada. The hit single Promiscuous remained the No. 1 single in Canada for seven weeks running, while occupying the No. 1 spot in the U.S. for eight weeks. In addition to gracing the covers of numerous international magazines during the last few months, she won three Teen Choice Awards and was nominated in three categories at the 2006 MTV Music Video Awards.
“This is our new single,” she shouted before a terrific version of Maneater, proving that all the studio funk and style of Loose can be transferred to stage. Maneater has already been a No. 1 hit single in Britain and is now being pushed here. Furtado will perform it on the 2006 Canadian Idol finale on Sept. 17.
Last night’s bill included B.C.’s Hedley and Halifax-born, Toronto-based Sloan, two rock bands who were also part of the 2005 Ovation fest.
