Whitney Comes to Dublin...

Irish Independent: Review: Whitney Houston, The 02, Dublin
By John Meagher
Monday April 19 2010

IT takes 40 minutes before Whitney Houston's comeback show kicks into life.

Unfortunately, Whitney (right) is not present at the time. She is backstage, changing costume, and it is her backing singers who raise the heartbeat with a blistering take on 'Queen of the Night'.

It's a shame, then, that a good chunk of the audience miss this moment having escaped to the bar during the song before, the one where her brother Gary steps out from the shadows and does his best to emulate the sort of listless performer you might find on a cruise ship.

The air of restlessness is exacerbated by her 15-minute break to change from a ghastly silver-and-white trouser-suit into a sparkly black dress, but, in truth, her fans have been shifting uncomfortably in their seats from the off.

Since her world tour began, Houston has had to contend with allegations of lapsing back into her old habits, while several people who attended her UK shows were so annoyed with her shoddy performance that they sought refunds.

After a lengthy, vainglorious intro replete with a video montage celebrating what was once a great talent, the 46-year-old launches into a passable version of newish song, 'For the Lovers'. But she and her tedious cabaret-like band remain stuck in first gear, and during 'Nothing but Love' she and a roadie wrestle ungainfully in an attempt to remove her portable microphone and as the band tries to rescue something from the song, she turns her back on the audience and reapplies her make-up.

She spends more time chatting to the audience than singing in the early stages, although her conversation rarely strays beyond the "I love you, Dublin" type. At one point she fixates on a young girl in the front row, but what initially is charming tries the patience of the audience and eventually becomes tedious.

Even the more tolerable songs -- 'My Love is Your Love', for instance -- are carried by the strength of her backing vocalists and the enthusiastic singing of the crowd.

There are slivers of the super-talented young Whitney -- a high note here, a spine-tingling pause there on 'I Will Always Love You' -- but they arrive so infrequently it hardly matters.

Instead, you are left with the memory of her botched attempts to wring some magic from 'I Wanna Dance with Somebody' and 'How Will I Know?'

At one point she boasts of having "actually got on a ferry" to get to Ireland, having been rendered flightless by Icelandic volcanic ash. There will have been some in the crowd wishing she hadn't made the trip so they could get their money back.

- John Meagher, Irish Independent
 

NEWSFILE: 19 APRIL 2010