review1

WITH Missy's street cred, Alicia's devotion to old- school R&B and Beyoncé's urban pop, the Ladies First tour at Nassau Coliseum Thursday was a three-way jam on hip-hop street.
Which side you take in the argument of who was best during this 41/2-hour extravaganza depends on what you look for in a concert: Elliott's set was the most personable, Keys' the most musical and Beyoncé's all about razzle-dazzle production.
Beyoncé owned the headlining slot and took full advantage of it, with plenty of over-the-top staging, costume changes and a female dance troupe with a very impressive repertoire of hip swivels and wiggles.
You'd have to be in denial not to be impressed with her Cleopatra entrance on a flouncy, man-powered litter carried shoulder-high. Like a queen, she scattered white rose petals in her wake as her rig trudged through the crowd, toward the stage, for her belly-dancing hit, "Baby Boy."
Make no mistake: Beyoncé is a powerful vocalist and she actually sings in concert.
Her costume changes may have seemed excessive, but these quick offstage swaps lent every song a personality and gave her time to catch her breath.
Yet even with all the eye-popping production numbers, it was on the simply played encore tune, "Crazy in Love," where she hit her high.
At other gigs, she's had to depend on a video of her boyfriend Jay-Z, but at Nassau, she coaxed him out of his self-imposed retirement to do his part live. Despite his brief stage time, Jay-Z looked and sounded terrific and was the concert's cherry on top.
Keys, who preceded Beyoncé, offered a very choreographed set, splitting her time between piano and kick-it-up dance moves. In the past, she's seemed uncomfortable and clumsy when shaking it up, but this performance found her more polished and graceful.
But Keys hit all of her personal bests when she was at her piano singing; songs such as "Fallin' " and her cascading ballad "You Don't Know My Name" rightly thrilled the house.
As for Missy, the crowd loved her just for being Missy. She has an electric presence that had the fans on their feet moving to each number without any concern for the incredibly bad sound that made the raps indiscernible.
If anyone understood her versions of "Get Ur Freak On" and "Supa Dupa Fly," it was more from memory than clarity.
Missy's abbreviated, 40-minute set was disturbing; she was allotted five minutes less than it took to get the stage ready for Keys.
While this was a good show with some great moments, it could have been better with a few simple fixes.
Had the trio of stars agreed on a shared stage, all the downtime could have been eliminated and ongoing momentum could have been built, instead of each act having to build its own.
The other trick this concert missed was that these three great performers never were on stage together. What a mistake.
The three shoulda, coulda worked out a tune that wasn't associated with any of them, like an upbeat Supremes classic. With Keys on piano and trading vocals with Beyoncé, and Elliott interpolating a rap line, it could have been the showstopper that defined this concert.