Alicia Keys needs a chance to soar
March 19th, 2008 admin Posted in News |
Helen Brown reviews Alicia Keys at the Birmingham NIA
“I don’t know if I feel comfortable…” says Alicia Keys as her three backing singers coax the demure, 26 year-old star into shaking a little booty with them. As they shimmy in their tight, short, silver dresses, the modestly trousered Alicia giggles, rolls her hips and humours them with a few uncommitted Beyoncé-lite moves.
She clearly doesn’t enjoy shifting her (or our) focus from her voice to her pelvis and, as the silver trio recede into the dry ice she reiterates:
“That just didn’t feel comfortable. It’s OK for a ’show’,” she says, flicking a little disdain into the word, “but I wanna do something special.”
And this is what’s wrong with the all-new Alicia Keys tour. It’s a show that wants to have its cake and rise above it.
A look at the punters goes some way to explaining why: there are the thirty- to fortysomethings who fell for the street-smart piano ballads of Songs in A Minor back in 2001, and were pleased to have their taste validated when Bob Dylan name-checked Keys on his last album.
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