Elliott, Tamia could have stayed longer with no Keys
For all the hype about the Verizon Ladies First Tour starring Beyoncé, Alicia Keys, Missy Elliott and Tamia, Monday night's American Airlines Center stop was anticlimactic and overrated.
First off, there's the Ms. Keys fiasco. She wasn't there. She was in New York inducting Prince into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Sounds like a better gig, and surely it wasn't a last-minute change of plans. We've been hearing about the Hall of Fame inductions for months. And yet there was Ms. Keys' name on the concert ticket.
Then there's the show's attendance – about 10,000 people. It wasn't sold out. Even before the last-minute announcement that Ms. Keys wouldn't be performing on the Dallas date it wasn't sold out. That's pretty paltry when you consider how high-profile Beyoncé, Ms. Keys and Ms. Elliott are now.
Finally, the crowd got nothing more from Tamia and Ms. Elliott regardless of being shortchanged one performer. Tamia was on for about 15 minutes. If you blinked, you missed her. She is, of course, the no-name of the bill. Her first two albums, 1998's Tamia and 2000's Nu Day, were slow sellers, especially compared with her multiplatinum tourmates. And her third disc, More, will finally arrive in stores April 6 after a few delays.
As for Ms. Elliott, she gave the crowd about 35 minutes of her time. And that's being generous because with her array of costume changes she seemed to be offstage more than she was on. But she's crafty. She had a posse of dancers, a guy at the turntables spinning records, a backup rapper and an elaborate set.
In fact, sometimes it was hard to focus your eyes on Ms. Elliott with all the activity around her. The platform was done up in fun-house fashion: two levels, glass cages that doubled as video screens, the DJ booth shaped like an open sphere on the second level and colorful curtains emblazoned with the star's name and logo.
The music was all canned. There was plenty of boom-boom and thump-thump to vibrate your chest. Every once in a while the words sounded familiar – "Get Ur Freak On," "Work It," "Pass That Dutch" – but ultimately they got lost in the spectacle.
Let's give her this, though: The girl knows how to coordinate costumes. She was always a perfect match with her dancers. The best ensemble was a glittery silver get-up that looked like sequins on silk and spandex. Her dancers wore similar threads. The men had on sleek silver suits while the women had on skimpy silver tops and matching shorts.
While Ms. Elliott ran around and looked busy, or while she was backstage changing clothes, her entourage offered sexually suggestive gyrations, crotch grabbing and acrobatics. They were truly the ones working it.

By MARIO TARRADELL,
The Dallas Morning News