Reviewed by Rob Friedman from foxnews, her worst critic

I had a feeling this was going to be something special. I was right.

Mariah Carey kicked off her American tour last night at the Colosseum in Caesar’s Palace, the same place where Celine Dion is installed as the regular performer, and she hit a grand-slam home run.

With a controlled, powerful belting instrument of a voice, Carey put to rest all past intimations of stage fright or uncertainty. Her one-hour, forty-five minute performance of her hit songs — in front of a sold out to the last seat room — was so confident I almost couldn’t believe she was the same person.

Carey’s choice of this "intimate" — all terms being relative, the Colosseum seats about 4,000 — setting, reflects (besides a tough summer for selling tickets) a real sensibility about her spectacular voice.

She is front and center for most of the show, with about a dozen dancers and backup singers discreetly interwoven into the action. But unlike some other young divettes who cover their lack of singing ability with stage traffic, Carey is out there by herself.

She rarely uses one of those new-fangled headset microphones. Instead she grips her hand mike as if it were a baseball bat while she commandingly sings every one of her hits — from "Dreamlover" to "Vision of Love" to the Jackson 5’s "I’ll Be There" — with heretofore unknown authority. Who knew she could do it? And who knew she could do it wearing a series of skimpy micro-miniskirts that show off hard-as-rock thighs worthy of the Valkyries?

Carey’s Vegas show marked her return to the U.S. after a month in Asia preparing the show and fine-tuning it. The plan worked. She made her entrance on a set that’s designed like a sunken living room in a hip Paris apartment or a very cool Starbucks. There are couches and easy chairs scattered about, and the sensibility is intimate, fairly unglitzy elegance. The singers and dancers are scattered about as if they were Mariah’s pals who’d dropped by to hang out with her.

In fact, there were times — even when Carey wears a Marilyn Monroe-inspired gold lame gown or a feathery full-length Roberto Cavalli number — that you feel you’ve wandered either into Loretta Young’s old TV show or a Broadway offering by a new, undiscovered talent.

The other good news is that Carey — whose voice was in top condition thanks to a two-day rest — has dropped about 95 percent of the melismatic yodeling that afflicted many of her records in the late 1990s. Her voice — again which many thought might have lost its power or tone — is strong and she’s using it with much more control. She’s hitting the notes dead-on and letting them blossom. The result is you feel like you’re listening to her great debut album, before the gimmickry set in.

A few times during the show she sips some herbal tea, which has some kind of soothing effect on her instrument.

Now, if you don’t believe me, I can tell you that Carey had two guests in the audience who are much harsher judges. Her sometime producer, Randy Jackson, the American Idol judge who is newly slimmed down after gastric bypass surgery, was one. But OK, he’s a judge, but he also works for Carey so he can’t be considered totally objective about his raving over the show.

The other guest, though, was unknown to everyone until she visited Carey backstage afterwards: Nancy Wilson, the legendary jazz and blues singer, who’s seen it all, nearly pushed an entire room of waiting fans aside to meet Mariah. She gushed, and when she left, Carey — wearing a butterfly print dress — called to everyone in the room: "Uh Hello? That was Nancy Wilson!"

And so to the show: Many of the songs from her so-so selling album Charmbracelet are included, and they work better than you might think. The ballad "Through the Rain" gains a lot of energy in this minimal setting because Carey doesn’t push it. The gospel number "My Saving Grace," which others might have done with a fully costumed, over-the-top choir, is performed with amazing restraint.

Carey also has to deal with the audience, which was very mixed in age and race but also included a number of her devoted, shall we say "extreme," fans. There were even a few Carey imitators, and they were not women. (Mariah, who is tall, inspires this, I guess.)

Because there is no orchestra pit at the Colosseum, a group of these hardy fanatics was able to stand very near the stage during the show. They sang along with every song, having memorized all the lyrics (and that’s no small feat considering a preponderance of them are no moon-June-spoon but missives about "self-empowerment").

During a terrific duet with Trey Lorenz on the old Jackson 5 hit, "I’ll Be There," one of this group — a young Asian man from San Francisco named Sam — took Carey’s offer to sing along too seriously and jumped on stage. The surprise of it didn’t faze her — Mariah played along with amazing aplomb — although Lorenz looked a little shocked. He said into the open mike, "I don’t know about this, fans coming on stage." Luckily Sam was harmless but something tells me this won’t be happening again anytime soon.

Two numbers in the show refer vaguely to Carey’s problems with her ex-husband, former Sony chief Tommy Mottola. One, a new song called "Clown," is positioned in a circus setting, with calliope music as the introduction. While Carey sings from the side, business-suited actors on stilts with sinister "Nixon" masks perform a tug-of-war with a female puppet on strings. This is actually called "The Marionette Show" and is as subtle as a flying mallet.

Carey also shows, on a screen during a costume change, the video for her song "Honey." This is the "James Bond" video in which she’s held hostage by a Mottola look-alike and his thugs, then breaks free and is rescued by a hunk on a jet ski. Only the first part, with the Mottola imitator, is shown, but you get the message.

After the show, a member of Carey’s entourage told me an enlightening story from Mariah’s "TM" days, which is how she refers to her ex. "He took her to Rao’s [the famous and exclusive Italian bistro in East Harlem where you can’t get a table]. Paul Anka was there. TM said, 'It’s Paul Anka!' He’d never met him. And Mariah, who was pretty young, had never heard of him. Tommy couldn’t believe it. He got up, went over to Anka, and said: ‘This is Mariah Carey! She’s never heard of you! Can you believe it?’ It was humiliating."

When the show is finally over, and Mariah’s sung her signature song "Vision of Love" and the fan favorite "Hero," the work is not over. I watched while she posed for pictures with countless numbers of fans, including members of her "Honey Bear" fan club, with not only incredible patience but also enthusiasm.

She is not cynical about these lines of supporters who come with scrapbooks they bring to her as gifts. To be provocative I asked her during a two-second break: "Why don’t you just kick them out and say good night? You just sang for two hours. I can’t believe you’re not throwing a diva fit."

Mariah (who in platform shoes trains her head slightly down toward me, and I’m five foot ten) narrowed her eyes. "I know," she sighed, "it’s so boring. Why don’t you say that I ran around and pulled all these pictures off the wall? It’s terrible being normal."

Carey heads next to Chicago for a Tuesday night show and then on through the U.S. She winds up at Radio City Music Hall on Sept. 26, where the long knives of New York's entertainment writers (me included) will no doubt be sharpened and out for blood. But what a disappointment Mariah's arrival will be for them! Whoever thought she'd get the last laugh? Certainly not me.

Resource(s): FOX News
[This message was edited Mon Jul 28 9:26:22 PDT 2003 by twink69]

Sounds like a great performance.I'm happy for Mariah,she has really got herself back together (Whitney,are you listening??).

And now, let's all hear it for a duet by Prince and Mariah "Why the music industry is oh so mean"

Who remembers Loretta Young's tv show?
Could he come up with an older reference?

Oh and by the way Bob Hope is dead.

I got a soft spot for this girl !! I'm happy she did well !!

Now come to Europe please !!

Fhunkin said:

if she has can't let go, love takes time emotions and anytime you need a friend in the set list i'd consider going...i can't deal with mariah post 1997-era but i'd go to see the early 90s stuff.

THE SHOW LOOKS GREAT, VERY DIFFERENT, IT LOOKS LIKE A FRENCH MUSICAL
Before Mariah came on stage to sing "Clown", the video screen played a little animation, incinuating an Eminem parody, using a backwards "E" for the "marionette show". Circus music was played in the background, and Mariah's dancers were dressed as clowns on stilts. (reffering to eminem as a pop puppet, controled manufactured puppet)

twink69 said:

does anyone have an entire setlist??

does anyone have an entire setlist??[/quote]

01. Heartbreaker / Heartbreaker Remix
02. Dreamlover
03. Through The Rain
04. My All / Club Mix (Dancers only)
05. Clown (After Marionette Show Intro)
06. Can't Take That Away (Mariah's Theme) - Voted Song
07. Honey
08. I Know What You Want
09. Subtle Invitation
10. My Saving Grace
--- Band Introduction
11. I’ll Be There (Featuring Trey Lorenz)
--- Trey Lorenz - Friend of Mine
12. Bringin’ On The Heartbreak
13. Fantasy (Remix)
14. Always Be My Baby
15. Make It Happen
16. Vision of Love
17. Hero

The set changes a little every night, depending on what the fans from each city voted for their set list on the net

I also like her attitude to her older music, she's not embarrased of it and won't play it (ie:Madonna, ) She knows what people want to hear and pay money to hear aswell as chosing stuff she's feeling now
[This message was edited Mon Jul 28 8:36:59 PDT 2003 by twink69]

Here are some pics, can't really see the set in these:
http://www.wireimage.com/...ls===31695