How good was Christina last night!??!?!?!?!?!!!

Admittedly it was my first pop-pop concert (so I have nothing to judge it against) but it was so good!! She is such a talented and engaging performer! I'm actually regretting that I didn't buy the $45 programme now (in addition to the $50 t-shirt, and the $85 ticket, heh)...

The first thing that hit me about the night was the amount of teenage fashion victims present...OMG. I think the biggest victim was the one who had cut out the bums of her pants so you could see her undies. Her, and all those wearing fishnets. (Let it be known that there is NOTHING tasteful about fishnets- they have "I am a skanky hoe" written all over them.) Anyway, felt quite sad and old rocking up in my normal beige pants and yellow t-shirt.

Emmanuel Carella opened the show....poor poor Emmanuel Carella. He was a pub singer playing a stadium...totally and utterly out of his league. The fact that he had a mic with a cord didn't help. Anywayz, he had almost zero stage presence, and he was performing songs that no one knew (except for Too Beautiful)- the only time he got screams was when he mentioned Christina. O well.

We were sitting on the top of the first tier, smack bang in the middle. Christina's set was awesome...it had a big screen upon which they projected arty video clips, as well as about 5 smaller and differently shaped screens hanging at various heights...very effective. All in all, it was like a massive video clip- really well choreographed and visually very entertaining (unlike John Mayer...I think he's been demoted to number 2 on my favourite artists list!). I especially enjoyed the concept behind Walk Away with a guy dancing in a frame and her singing outside it looking in. Dirrty, Fighter, and Genie in a Bottle were well done too.

Stand out songs were her At Last cover, her acoustic version of Come on Over Baby and Beautiful (she sang the first verse unaccompanied, with the entire crowd singing along). She had such a huge stage presence...awesome.

For all the talk about her sometimes lurid dress-sense, I thought all her outfits were suitable for their context- and not all of them were icky. There was the funny-strapped-on-black-bits-of-material outfit for Dirrty and Get Mine, Get Yours, and the bodice + hot pants get-up for...I think it was for Can't Hold Us Down (I forget), and this weird black cape/dress thing for The Voice Within. But there was also a nice red dress for At Last and a tailored suit thing as well.

She had such an amazing voice...huge for such a small person! The sound was a bit dodge (feedback at times), but it didn't really matter. She seemed like quite a nice person on stage. The biggest distinction between her and JM's concert was that she was actually out to entertain the audience, where JM seemed to be there to indulge himself, rather than the audience (he comes across that way on his DVD too- as if he's there for himself and not the audience), and because of that Christina was heaps better in my opinion!! I hope she puts out a DVD!

We left the Entertainment Center in raptures of "Ohhh it was soooooo goood! She's sooooo gooood!!!" (I think I kind of scared Judith picking up the phone with those exact words in a high pitched squeal, hehe). Anywayz, I'm going away this week, so I'll chat when I return... doubtless there'll be many things to tell you!

ciao!