TORONTO - It’s official: Janet Jackson is ready for Vegas judging from her Number Ones, Up Close and Personal Tour which pulled into the Sony Centre For The Performing Arts on Saturday night for the first of two back-to-back shows.
And I don’t mean that like it’s necessarily a bad thing.
Other huge pop stars have gone to Sin City before her in recent years, Celine Dion, Elton John, Cher and Bette Midler to name a few, and done extremely well.
And with a similar constituency in terms of audience, the 44-year-old Jackson could easily follows in their footsteps, especially with her current show.
It’s a scaled-down, fast-paced, crowd-pleasing, wall-to-wall hits package that clocks in at a mere hour and 35-minutes and is heavy on medleys, sexy, glamorous costumes, choreographed dance moves and tributes to her late brother Michael.
Currently without a record company deal and recovering from spotty 2008 trek where dates were cancelled, there in fact may never been a better time for Jackson to make the move to glitzier confines.
Performing in front of 3,200 ecstatic fans on Saturday night who couldn’t believe they were getting to see their beloved R&B-pop-dance diva in such an intimate venue, Jackson’s eight-piece band - all dressed in white - first sauntered on stage in the dark while a vintage video for Comeback to Me played on a large video screen.
The significance was that Jackson has been dedicating one of her songs to each city she visits on her current tour and Toronto’s was Comeback To Me.
I know it doesn’t really make that much sense but the crowd ate it up.
Following that the sleek, sexy and short-haired Jackson finally appeared in all her glory in a skin tight grey pantsuit with nude cut outs along the side surrounded by male and female dancers during the first of what would be many medleys to come.
The opening salvo featured The Pleasure Principle, Control, What Have You Done For Me Lately and Feedback but she really hit her stride by the second medley with such highlights as Miss You Much and Nasty.
Her stage banter was mainly limited to encouraging the audience to sing, jump up and down or professing her love for them. She also occasionally giggled.
And compared to previous arena treks, her production was severely scaled down - a video screen showed computer imagery, a slide show of past photos, or clips from her acting career including The Jeffersons, Poetic Justice and Why Did I Get Married Too whenever she exited to make costume changes.
The most glamorous of her outfits was a diamond-encrusted lavender gown during her ballad medley of Nothing, Come Back To Me, Let’s Wait Awhile, and Again, that apparently wasn’t properly done up given Jackson’s dresser made her way out onto the stage mid-way through to adjust the back clasp while the singer continued to perform.
Nobody wanted a repeat of Jackson’s infamous wardrobe malfunction, it seems.
When Jackson returned in a black tank top, cargo pants and combat boots she was properly suited up for yet more dancing during the best medley of the bunch - Doesn’t Really Matter, Escapade, Love Will Never Do (Without You), When I Think Of You and All For You - followed by another highlight, That’s The Way Love Goes.
Only Rhythm Nation would match in intensity slightly later in the show.
Jackson saved her tribute to big brother Michael for the end as she performed their duet Scream, while the striking, black and white video for the song played behind her, and during the encore, she showed pictures of them as young children during Together Again and looked skywards during the song, which was previously a tribute to friends she had lost to AIDS.
