Chicker
04-19-2004, 03:49 PM
UK Magazine Maverick - May 2004
Review of Shania's Up! Live In Chicago DVD.
***** :D
There is a myopic school of thought among purists that country music should remain their little secret – keep it rigidly traditional and suitably obscure and it will never be hijacked by the masses. Consequently, unashamedly commercial artists like Garth Brooks and Shania Twain are derided for adapting country, crossing it with rock and pop and developing a modern hybrid that – horror of horrors! – sells millions of records to a global audience.
You may recall a guy called Elvis doing something similar. Anyway, Shania’s recent sell-out UK tour thrilled fans while prompting unseemly bitching from several critics. ‘Too slick, soulless, a sell-out,’ were a few of the views expressed. That, of course, is arrant nonsense.
Music constantly evolves and there is just as much merit in Shania’s highly polished stadium pop-country as you will find in a shy singer-songwriter entertaining to a handful of aficionados in a venue the size of a phone booth.
The point is perfectly proved by Ms Twain’s new DVD, a riotous gig at Chicago’s Grant Park last summer, which served as an appetiser for her latest world tour.
Early in the show Shania tells the 200,000 adoring fans how delighted she is to be back on a concert stage after three years away from live performance. Signs of rust then? Not with an outfit as professional as this, the same versatile nine-piece road band which accompanied Shania on her British dates.
They were as tight as a duck’s posterior in Chicago and Shania – heart-stoppingly gorgeous in a sculpted yellow crop top offering the ultimate naval display – revelled in her warm interaction with an ecstatic audience who echoed every word of all 22 songs.
In a one-hour 45-minute party, they were certainly for the Up! collection, which sounds even better live than on record as Shania introduces memorable melodic ballads like “Forever and For Always,” “When You Kiss Me” and “It Only Hurts When I’m Breathing” alongside stone cold show-stoppers in “Man! I Feel Like A Woman,” “That Don’t Impress Me Much” and irresistible “If You’re Not In It For Love.”
Apart from the fireworks on stage, you can enjoy plenty of pyrotechnics between numbers while savouring the strong country flavour of “No One Needs To Know,” “Honey, Im Home” and the fiddle-driven “Whose Bed Have Your Boots Been Under?.”
Detractors may scorn several prolonged audience participation spots, but by the time the show reaches climax with a spectacular, “Rock This Country,” I defy you not to be belting out the lyrics along with Shania’s delirious devotees. Say what you will, but like the firework finale, this girl is a shinning star…. and she’s still the one. BK
:wink: 8)
Review of Shania's Up! Live In Chicago DVD.
***** :D
There is a myopic school of thought among purists that country music should remain their little secret – keep it rigidly traditional and suitably obscure and it will never be hijacked by the masses. Consequently, unashamedly commercial artists like Garth Brooks and Shania Twain are derided for adapting country, crossing it with rock and pop and developing a modern hybrid that – horror of horrors! – sells millions of records to a global audience.
You may recall a guy called Elvis doing something similar. Anyway, Shania’s recent sell-out UK tour thrilled fans while prompting unseemly bitching from several critics. ‘Too slick, soulless, a sell-out,’ were a few of the views expressed. That, of course, is arrant nonsense.
Music constantly evolves and there is just as much merit in Shania’s highly polished stadium pop-country as you will find in a shy singer-songwriter entertaining to a handful of aficionados in a venue the size of a phone booth.
The point is perfectly proved by Ms Twain’s new DVD, a riotous gig at Chicago’s Grant Park last summer, which served as an appetiser for her latest world tour.
Early in the show Shania tells the 200,000 adoring fans how delighted she is to be back on a concert stage after three years away from live performance. Signs of rust then? Not with an outfit as professional as this, the same versatile nine-piece road band which accompanied Shania on her British dates.
They were as tight as a duck’s posterior in Chicago and Shania – heart-stoppingly gorgeous in a sculpted yellow crop top offering the ultimate naval display – revelled in her warm interaction with an ecstatic audience who echoed every word of all 22 songs.
In a one-hour 45-minute party, they were certainly for the Up! collection, which sounds even better live than on record as Shania introduces memorable melodic ballads like “Forever and For Always,” “When You Kiss Me” and “It Only Hurts When I’m Breathing” alongside stone cold show-stoppers in “Man! I Feel Like A Woman,” “That Don’t Impress Me Much” and irresistible “If You’re Not In It For Love.”
Apart from the fireworks on stage, you can enjoy plenty of pyrotechnics between numbers while savouring the strong country flavour of “No One Needs To Know,” “Honey, Im Home” and the fiddle-driven “Whose Bed Have Your Boots Been Under?.”
Detractors may scorn several prolonged audience participation spots, but by the time the show reaches climax with a spectacular, “Rock This Country,” I defy you not to be belting out the lyrics along with Shania’s delirious devotees. Say what you will, but like the firework finale, this girl is a shinning star…. and she’s still the one. BK
:wink: 8)