Jennifer Lopez – review
02, London
It's surprising to learn that Jennifer Lopez had never headlined her own tour before her current jaunt. Most divas in her glittery league consider an occasional sweep of global arenas essential for keeping fans on side, but then again, J-Lo has always given the impression that her pop career is fairly low on her list of priorities. She's better known as an actor, entrepreneur and emblem of Hispanic America than she is for any of her albums. Banks of empty seats at this show suggest she may have left it too long.
Now that she's finally got around to it, though, she's giving it the 1,000% customarily demanded by talent show judges. The theme of the set is New York, alluded to by a backdrop showing the Statue of Liberty's crown studded with diamonds, and Lopez's every atom is permeated with the city's go-getting confidence. She's not the strongest vocalist in the world, and too many of tonight's 18 or so pop-R&B tracks leave no aftertaste, but Lopez could teach Madonna a thing or two about self-belief. Thundering around the stage, shaking hands with overwhelmed fans ("Don't cry!" she sternly instructs), she's warm, funny and, despite the gloss, very "real".
"I'm just a simple girl from the Bronx," she informs us with a figurative wink and nudge. The show takes the girl-from-the-hood idea and runs with it. Ushered on by a troupe of dancers dressed in Broadway-inspired top hats and tails, she immediately rips off her floor-length skirt, revealing a sequined leotard. Thus dressed for battle, she steams in and roars through Get Right, Love Don't Cost a Thing and I'm Into You. These three summarise her musical breadth as well as anything – skittering hip-pop, bouncy bubblegum and hands-in-the-air club fare – but they would be so much generic dance-pap if Lopez weren't there, giving them life through sheer alpha-female force.
A costume change later, she's in a boxing ring, singing Goin' In; then she clambers into a gold tracksuit to "go back to the Bronx", where she leads the dancers through a quickstep Jenny from the Block. We're transported to an old-school uptown theatre for Hold It Don't Drop It, and to the fictitious Club Babalu during Papi. All these vignettes are executed with such moxie that she can be forgiven a five-minute video montage of her with her four-year-old twins. At the end, it isn't J-Lo the mother or even J-Lo the diva who sticks in the mind, but Jenny from the block, who still knows where she came from.
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http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2012...?newsfeed=true