Mariah's mumbling leaves them listless at Miami concert
Mariah Carey needs to get out more. The concert that Carey put on Wednesday at AmericanAirlines Arena - her first in South Florida in seven years - was a claustrophobic's nightmare. For all the space the venue offered, having to sit through the sold-out exercise amounted to forced lockup in Mariah's closet.
It wasn't just the mix, which sounded like something stuffed with cotton and muscled the life out of half the songs. Carey's girlish notions of fun, writ large in a clumsy stage production suggested somebody who is stuck inside her own head and out of touch with the world. Sodden pacing and long, frivolous talking breaks between songs only confirmed that what Carey knows about life and art, she clearly did not learn by attending good concerts.
From the opening song, Emotions, through a mumbling set list devoid of drama or surprise, Carey, 30, the best-selling female pop star of the past decade, managed only mere recital of vocal parts that she would have no business missing, anyway. Carey is a capable singer, yes, but not an inspired one. She was even less of a performer on Wednesday. Carey moved about the stage as if afraid of falling off her heels. She sang as if preserving her voice for her next gig.
Backed by a nine-piece band and a total ensemble that grew to as many as 16 people, Carey seemed ready to cut loose on her cover of Phil Collins' Against All Odds. As she vaulted into the ballad's upper register, hitting the highs with obvious ease, she fell to her knees in a long pink gown - a carry-over costume from a mildly funny beauty queen sketch from a previous song.
It was one of a handful of moments where emotion and Carey's fearsome technique converged to great effect. But a moment was all. More often, Carey was busy discussing what she was planning to do or sing. "Since we've changed our set list, oh, about 10 or 11 times, what am I gonna do?" she said aloud at one point.
This kind of throat-clearing went hand in hand with Carey's tendency to blow any shot at surprise. Pulling people from the crowd for a "celebratory champagne toast" - which lasted 10 minutes - she said to the unlucky, "Don't be mad at me if I don't pick you because I'll be out there later."
Add these failings to the opening montage, a would-be satirical video positing Mariah and evil twin "Bianca" as two sides of the same coin, and you can imagine what a mess it was inside that closet, what with Carey tossing around ideas, images and songs like scraps of clothing, as if searching for something wearable. She didn't find much of anything in there on Wednesday.
Carey already was a millions-seller when she made her live debut - at Miami Arena, as it happens, in fall 1993. Wednesday was more of a lark, a flitty indulgence by the newly divorced and liberated Carey, who dumped her record-company Svengali, Tommy Mottola. But she can flit all she wants, apparently. With 15 No. 1 singles, and more than 120 million albums sold, Carey proves how little some acts need touring to gain credibility with fans. (The Sun Sentinel)
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