Britney Spears Live: The Femme Fatale Tour Blu-ray delivers stunning video and reference-quality audio in this excellent Blu-ray release
Sexy. Slammin'. Outrageous. Hurl all the adjectives you want, but one word says it all: Britney. (Ms. Spears if you're nasty.) The Grammy-winning pop diva storms the stage with a fierce mix of fan-favorite hits and hot new tracks from her latest album, Femme Fatale, in this concert special taped before a sold-out crowd in Toronto. Whether you're in the market for bodacious dance moves, killer costume changes or that make-you-melt Louisiana drawl, Britney's bringing ‘em all - bigger and better than ever.
Is Britney Spears back from the brink? The pop icon, arguably her generation's biggest music superstar, seemed
dangerously close to the end of her career little more than two or three years ago. Virtually no news report appeared
about the singer without describing her as "troubled." Her escapades, including her infamous head shaving episode,
ultimately led to intimations of mental illness, her finances being placed into a conservatorship, and Dr. Phil angling for a
very special sitdown with star, hopefully to air during Sweeps Month. (The good doctor found himself in the awkward
position of having to release a formal apology to the press after he commented on Brit's disposition in a well publicized
interview surrounding his visit to the ailing star while she was hospitalized). Brit seemed perhaps unexpectedly
sanguine about all the fuss and bother over her career, though some wags, especially those in the tabloid press,
claimed that that was simply further proof of her mental instability. And yet through it all somehow Britney managed to
keep it together enough to keep recording, charting several Top 10 singles, and truth be told the critics if anything were
perhaps a bit kinder to Brit than they had been in previous years, as with the critical brickbats which were thrown her
way in her lambasted appearance at the MTV Music Video Awards. Spears is one of several former Disney kids who
some decry as the worst example of pre-packaged pop stardom, and in a recording and performing industry dominated
by autotuning and "live" performances rife with prerecords and multitrack playback augmenting whatever (if anything) is
actually done live on stage, it's hard to put up much of a sustained argument that stars like Brit at the very least have
the appearance of being products instead of actual, honest to goodness, talents. And so we come to Brit's
2011 Femme Fatale Tour, captured here in high definition, culled from concerts she gave in Toronto. Cynics may still
decry Brit as being pre-packaged, a zombiefied icon moving through the paces with all the grace of programmed robot,
but it simply can't be denied that, for better or worse, Brit is back.
Despite her years with Disney and her resultant pop superstardom, Spears hasn't really been able to parlay that success
into much of a feature film career, at least not as of yet. The Femme Fatale Tour seems to want to hint at least at Brit's
incipient acting chops, as the entire evening has a plot of sorts and includes several video elements where Britney has the
chance to do something other than sing or dance, at least for a second or two. The conceit here is that Brit is supposedly
a femme fatale a la Mata Hari, a superspy who is on the lam from a nefarious stalker, and of course there's no better place
to hide than in front of tens of thousands of screaming fans under the klieg lights of an arena sized stage in Toronto. But
the video elements, as entertaining as they may be, point up one of the central problems some may have with this
performance: it is choreographed down to the minutest detail, and any semblance of spontaneity or improvisatory
interaction with the audience is frankly nowhere to be found. This may be understandable, given Spears' recent history, in
that an extremely firm structure keeps everything on course, but it also puts up a wall of impenetrability between
Spears and her audience, despite a faltering attempt at some faux interaction, as when she has a helpless
audience member join her onstage for one number.
As strictly controlled as the Femme Fatale concert is, it's also completely obvious that Brit's huge legion of fans is soaking up every blinking
light, quick cut dance move and thumping dance beat. This show may lack anything approaching a free and easy moment, but for all its
ultra-packaged glitz and glamour it is without a doubt one of the most energetic and consistently visually arresting mega-concerts in recent
memory. Britney is just as obviously completely back in shape, physically at least, and she must be certainly be in control of her faculties to
move through such a complex show with such grace. From a musical standpoint, it's a bit harder to take this concert as seriously as some
rapturous audience members obviously do, as it's completely evident the concert is filled to the brim with pre-recordings and augmentations.
While Brit's "live" voice is in there—somewhere—the show has the feeling at least of a lip-synched extravaganza with attendant
choreography and lots and lots of production design.
The show has a number of standout elements, including an homage to Marilyn Monroe, a Cleopatra on the Nile-esque barge replete with
Egyptian motifs, and what can only be termed a sort of proto-Ninja sequence toward the end. Through it all Britney performs with precision
and finesse, but cynics are still going to accuse the show of being robotic and formulaic. It's instructive to contrast the over the top theatrics
of this Femme Fatale concert with the comparatively "primitive" Adele concert at the Royal Albert Hall which I recently reviewed. Adele basically just
stands (or sits) there and sings, not an an ounce of movement, no pyrotechnics, and at times only a keyboard supporting her sultry voice.
Of course, Britney's musical choices are completely at odds with Adele's, and so a comparison is probably unfair, but it's hard to think of
Britney as a singer sometimes when there's so much else going on to distract the audience away from the music. Is that by design?
Maybe Britney, who repeatedly says "they call me crazy" or things like it throughout the concert, is actually crazy like a fox.
Britney's set list (complete with video segments) is:
Britney Spears: The Femme Fatale Tour is presented on Blu-ray with an AVC encoded 1080i transfer in 1.78:1. The Femme Fatale
concert is an amazing extravaganza of sights, and this high definition presentation is certainly one of the most eye popping concert videos in
recent memory. The overall image is sharp as a tack and offers abundant clarity and some surprisingly excellent fine detail, especially in close-
ups. Black levels are gorgeously deep, but little if any shadow detail is lost in them, despite some large upstage klieg lights aimed directly at the
audience (and cameras). The interlaced format doesn't present any horrible combing artifacts, colors are solid and extremely well saturated, and
the concert provides a really great "you are there" feeling that fans will certainly enjoy.
Britney Spears: The Femme Fatale Tour features two lossless tracks, an LPCM 5.1 uncompressed surround mix and an LPCM 2.0 stereo
mix, as well as a standard Dolby Digital 5.1 mix. Say what you will about the actual music on this concert (and I'll try to refrain for fear of being
tarred and feathered by Brit's rabid fan base), the two LPCM tracks here are staggeringly robust, with some of the best low end I've personally
heard in a live concert offering over the past year at least. There are actually some nice, if subtle, differences in the playback mixes between the
5.1 and 2.0 LPCM tracks and Brit's most ardent fans may want to listen to the concert at least twice so that they can hear both tracks in their
entirety (and of course the biggest fans are going to return to the concert much more than twice). Fidelity is excellent, with really lustrous
reproduction of all frequency ranges. There frankly isn't a whale of a lot of dynamic range here, since the bulk of the concert is Brit's dance
oriented tunes, most of which offer loud and consistent kick drums and bass, but in a couple of relatively quieter moments, both LPCM tracks
support everything that's going on quite effortlessly.
Britney Spears: The Femme Fatale Tour is an eye popping extravaganza that comes at the audience full force and rarely if ever lets up.
It's incessantly energetic, visually quite amazing at times and sonically a virtual nonstop array of thumping dance beats. Britney is completely on
top of her game throughout, with well articulated dance moves and complete control of her stagecraft. But the concert has a buttoned down,
completely mapped out feel that deprives the audience from ever really feeling close to the star. That's probably by design, but it means no one
ever is really going to get a piece of Britney. Still, for fans at least, this Blu-ray looks and sounds magnificent and easily comes
Recommended.
