The Ladies First tour gathers the few women headliners who dominate today's charts -- Beyonce, Alicia Keys, Missy Elliott -- and their power-in-numbers approach illuminates a richer depth of performance styles, genres and moods than their male counterparts. Their individual sets Friday night at Allstate Arena in Rosemont may have been different, but not so their shared themes of self-reliance, self-worth and always feeling that beat.
Beyonce topped the bill because this year she is America's sweetheart. With five Grammys recently under her belt and a well-received delivery of the national anthem at the Super Bowl, Beyonce is a crossover darling who uses her sex appeal tastefully to show she is the one always in control.
She made her entrance being carried through the crowd, tossing rose petals like an Egyptian queen. Her 12-song, hour-long set had many of the trappings of divas a generation before her: multiple costume changes, extensive choreography and a preference for whisking through a song to get to the next. The busy regimen at times neglected to produce significant music. With her keyboard-heavy band and DJ switching moods on a dime, the show felt rushed. Beyonce neglected to sing some songs to completion, like her Destiny Child's hit "Survivor," and on other songs like "Hip Hop Star," she left most of the singing to her backup vocalists so she could concentrate on dancing.
Those times she took a pause, like on her hit "Me, Myself and I," Beyonce showed she had a robust voice that was roof raising and as striking as her outfits.
Alicia Keys tried some simple choreography and, thankfully, it wasn't her suit. Instead, her 13-song, hour-long set was strictly focused on her piano and voice, both combining to channel old school soul. Although she arrived with as large a band as Beyonce and slithered atop her piano late into her set, Keys' straightforward approach showed she is a singer-songwriter dedicated to a long, sustainable career instead of current trendmaking.
For many songs, she performed alone at piano. Her vocal inflection ranged from pleading to assured to shrewd. Her songs -- "Why Don't You Call Me," "Butterflyz" -- were fused with the most depth of the night. As bandleader, Keys ruled through her voice, leading tempo changes and climbing peaks with strength.
Even though Missy Elliott has been around longer than her co-headliners, she was relegated to opener status, given only a 30-minute set. That was a shame considering Elliott is one of hip-hop's most wicked talents, a triple threat producer-songwriter-singer. Like her albums, her show featured throbbing rhythm tracks, making it the most bounce-heavy set of the night. Because of the brevity of her set time, a lot of her songs disappeared into each together with primary attention on her menagerie of oddball dancers. In outfits reminiscent of Mardi Gras debauchery, Elliott and gang got the party started early with pure dumb fun.
By Mark Guarino,
Daily Herald