Britney Spears: Piece of Me "live" in Las Vegas

Britney Spears used to sing live, sometimes. She gargled her way through an excruciating live rendition of her hit 'Everytime' on her Onyx Hotel Tour, something I witnessed before my very eyes and ears. At least she could be patted on the back for effort, perhaps even ballsiness for even attempting such a bold move when her singing voice isn't particularly...strong. So when it was announced she was going to take up residency in Las Vegas across the latter stage of 2013 and throughout 2014, I couldn't be blamed for presuming it would be a mime fest. 

Her team tried to quash this idea that resonated in global pop consciousness with statements along the lines of 'she's ready to sing' and 'her voice is better than ever' (words to that effect). So, a flash of doubt darted across my mind and I thought "OK, maybe she will do her job and actually sing live. Maybe she will stop being lazy or at least hold her hands up and admit that she's a shit singer'. I was wrong to doubt myself, oh fucking wrong I was! I owe myself a big fat apology. 

There she goes again, with the fucking arms!

Her residency kicked off on Boxing Day 2013. Predictably, the set is quite great. It's brimming with life, movement and flashing lights, glitz and glamour. It's all very exciting, expensive and well put together. Just for the record, I wasn't there, but I have seen enough YouTube evidence and photographic evidence to back myself up. The epic club worthy synths of Work Bitch kick in and the show begins. The dancers work very hard throughout, cutting fine shapes, defying gravity and synchronising perfectly. Who is this blonde who has seemingly intruded on what is a fun dance show with an entertaining backing track? Oh wait, (lol) it's Britney Spears! In fairness, her energy is on point for the first 30 seconds of the performance and then, typically for this performer in this era of her career, her energy drops and the lazy arm focused dance moves commence. Her legs work out of time with the dancers and it's so obviously a lip sync session it's laughable (at least record a live backing track darling). 

 

From what I can gather, this is a trend throughout. She cracks out 4 of her most immense tracks, Baby One More Time/Oops! I Did It Again, Stronger and Crazy. This is the Britney people want to see and by 'people' I mean me. Again, another obviously lip synced segue commences with a medley of her two most well known hits. Gone are the dance routines of yesteryear and in are the arm movements, being carried by dancers and getting entangled in red cloth a la Rachel Stevens Sweet Dreams (My LA Ex). It's so lack lustre that if you put the track on in an old people's care home you'd get more energy out of it. The dancers again, work very hard and without their efforts this show would be a laughing stock. Thankfully, for Britney at least, the surrounding spectacle distracts everyone from her obvious attitude of 'I'm rich and bored and I really don't want to perform anymore'. There isn't even a hand-heart-pump dance move shoved in for nostalgia's sake on Oops. There are performances of non-singles from her brilliant Blackout album, but these could have been replaced with other hits like Overprotected and instead of the song equivalent of the turd Lucky, she could have shoved in Born To Make You Happy or at least a superior track from one of her later albums. 

 

She closes off the show with pop rave tune Til' The World Ends. It's a superb club song marred by a lifeless attempt at interacting with her dancers and a piss poor attempt at pretending to have fun. Yes, hands are in again, as are fist pumps and lots of jumping on the spot. Really, for an act who pretty much redefined pop music of the late 90s (that's questionable in itself - I think we have Max Martin to thank for that) and early 00s with songs and videos like Slave 4 U and Toxic, this is a really deflating Vegas residency which had it been done years ago could actually have been pretty incredible.