Music doesn’t form in a vacuum. Its creation zaps across history, like majestic synapses firing throughout across epoch’s worth of global consciousness. There are cosmic echoes, familiar cascades found within the new. The new becomes old, the erratic, anachronistic cycle carries forth, self-referential and celebratory.
In old-school revue fashion, the band preceded the night’s star, entering to embellish a recording of Bobby Womack’s Across 110th Street with touches of live instrumentation. Then, an extreme close-up apparition of the late, great Ol’ Dirty Bastard appears on the wall-encompassing screen: the main event; Fantasy (Remix). That beat, sampled wholesale from Tom Tom Club’s Genius Of Love, is the perfect elation for The Elusive Chanteuse’s escorted entry into the spotlight. No pyrotechnics, just a superstar, with a capital M.
The remix version of Fantasy and its necromantic ODB verses didn’t have to be performed tonight; the decision to enlist ODB, a rapper with still-unmatched levels of unhinged brilliance, wasn’t exactly logical in the first place. It marked the beginning of a fruitfully symbiotic relationship between Carey’s chart-topping dominance and hip-hop’s burgeoning mainstream embracement. Every aspect of Carey’s presence was stunning. Her voice is still a weapon; a finger-in-ear-triggering, glass-shattering, jaw-dropping higher registers: flawless throughout.
This wasn’t an arena pop spectacular. It was an R&B master class. The setlist was a delicious overload of modern R&B’s biggest, most powerful songs, achieving that canny brain scramble towards the close: “There can’t possiblybe any more hits.” Then bam, the definitive power ballad, Hero. “Okay nowthere can’t possibly be any more hits.” Always Be My Baby. Of course.
Irrepressible diva acumen was in full force, but Mimi was still personable and playful. Opening act Nathaniel re-emerged for a rare (tour exclusive, apparently) duet of One Sweet Day. Mariah strolled through the crowd during Thirsty, explaining the move as if it were spontaneous, which it might as well have been, when she returned to the stage.
The show was, presumably unintentional, a cold war between timelessness and nostalgia. It was the ‘90s, purified slightly, bottled. Film clip excess, especially in Honey and Heartbreaker, was relived in standard definition glory. A reminder of the days when Jay-Z was not quite a businessman, let alone a business, man. The modern follies of the intense pop paradigm rest on Mariah like mere garnish – an obligatory hashtag in the title of 2013’s decent #Beautiful, the on-trend parlance of the middling Thirsty. But Mariah rises above. An icon, resilient through voice, song and beauty. Bow down.
BY LACHLAN KANONIUK
Loved: Mimi.
Hated: The empty seats behind the top-tier curtain.
Drank: One sports drink.
