Nearly a month into this five-week tour, there is no reason for set changes to drag on past the 40-minute mark or for the sound to rattle and overpower any singer on stage. The four-hour blowout, which began with the middling Tamia at 6:50 p.m. (10 minutes before the advertised start of the show), contained so many time-stalling devices to keep the teens at the T-shirt counters in the lobby that the downtime almost ticked longer than the girls' combined performance time.
It's likely that this tour was originally devised as Beyonce's coming-out extravaganza from Destiny's Child. But, as Justin Timberlake learned last summer, selling millions of a solo debut and possessing the pedigree of fronting a teen group aren't enough alone to sell out arenas.
Cue the most wholly musical of the bunch, the piano-driven Keys, and hip-hop's cheerful female mascot, Portsmouth's Elliott.
All three turned in well-performed sets at Wednesday's first MCI Center date (the tour returns Sunday), but all lacked a necessary cohesiveness.
Elliott's zippy 30 minutes were mostly spent ducking backstage for numerous costume changes - fringed boots to a black-and-yellow tracksuit to torn jeans and sneakers - and yelling at the crowd, "I can't heeeeeeear you!"
With eight Missy doppelg?ngers, five dancers and a male rapper sharing the stage, it was too easy to lose the ever-shrinking Elliot in the crowd.
That doesn't happen to superstars.
Elliott didn't even appear on stage as dancers in multicolored wigs pranced around for "Let Me Fix My Weave," a shame, because when she was in front of the audience, Elliott exhibited a loose playfulness. A remixed "Get Ur Freak On" proved her rapping prowess - and when Elliott dashed around the floor of the arena, jumping on chairs and egging the crowd to pump their fists to "Work It," her newfound performing confidence radiated.
Her set also provided the raunch quotient for the evening, starting with the unprintable chant that signaled her arrival on stage and the spread limbs of several dancers. One male dancer spent his moment in the spotlight with his hand down the front of his underwear. Lose something, dude?
Elliott kick-started the energy level, then disappeared in an immensely anticlimactic stage exit.
Keys started not behind her piano, but at the top of a set of stairs in a brimmed hat, stiletto boots and carrying a cane. Her hourlong show launched with a sampling of an old-school R&B revue, with Keys, another formerly shy performer, shaking her booty to "Rock Wit U," spiced with a horn blast from "Jungle Boogie," and stamping along to the charging "Heartburn."
Keys is a healthy-looking girl who knows that sweat isn't unglamorous - it's proof of how hard you're working onstage. But as hard as she worked and as pitch-perfect as her voice sounded, her performance suffered from poor pacing. After electrifying the nearly sold-out crowd with several funk-soul numbers, Keys retreated to her beloved Yamaha piano for a passionate take on Prince's "How Come You Don't Call Me," Michael Jackson's "Never Can Say Goodbye," and her own "A Woman's Work" and "If I Ain't Got You." Then she jokingly conducted her seven-piece band in an uninspiring instrumental before the obvious "Fallin'."
Too many times it seemed the right time for Keys to call it a night, a feeling that also tainted Beyonce's star turn.
Arriving on a dais carried down the center aisle and tossing red rose petals to her minions, Beyonce fell into Tina Turner mode immediately, shimmying in a gold-fringed two-piece to the dancehall "Baby Boy." Unlike some of her peers, there was never a question that Beyonce was singing. Note to the Lip-Syncing Brigade: It's OK to be a little out of breath.
Beyonce has been groomed since childhood for this moment of solo glory, so it wasn't surprising that Destiny's chart-toppers "Say My Name," "Independent Women" and "Jumpin' Jumpin'" were treated as obligations, with only snippets of each tossed to the hungry crowd.
Instead, she flailed her hips and wiggled her newly ripped torso to the hard-charging "Hip Hop Star" before delving - complete with multiple clothing changes - into the nondescript ballads that overload her album.
Before an incognito Jay-Z slipped onstage to help his girlfriend rap up "Crazy In Love," the audience was nearly lulled into naptime, which made his surprise appearance even more of a jolt. As Beyonce jiggled through the "Crazy" dance in denim hot pants and red-sequined "Wizard of Oz" shoes, she looked like a star, all right - but one who still needs her friends to share the load.
BY MELISSA RUGGIERI,
TIMES-DISPATCH