O2, Dublin
OMG but Miley Cyrus is so over Hannah Montana. In her Disney series (it seems to be playing on a continuous loop on cable TV), she is an endearingly goofy high-school student by day and, secretly, a wholesome pop star by night. But on her Wonder World Tour, which reached Dublin this week, the transformation is way more extreme. Cyrus Mark II is a raunchy pop punkette (who knew they made leather shorts that small?) belting out mostly angsty tunes (well, she is 17) backed by a driving guitar and synth bassline.
The songs are mostly from her current Breakoutalbum, including a belting Fly on the Wall(with mesmerisingly powerful graphics on three giant background screens), as well as full-on versions of Start All Over, Party in the USA, These Four Wallsand I Love Rock'n'Roll.
In London's O2 she flew above the crowd on a motorbike, but that wasn't part of the Dublin event. Not that the audience was short-changed when it came to special effects and visual oomph. The staging was superb. Each song brought its own slick on-screen visuals, costume changes and dance routines. At one point she appeared to dive off the back of the stage, only to reappear up on the big screens, swimming serenely underwater. The hydraulics in the O2 worked overtime: she was brought up on stage with a grand piano, raised up on platforms, and, during one song, flown through the air in a tutu like a ferocious fairy. When she sang one of her catchiest songs, Simple Song, sheets of music fell from the roof, thrilling the little ones at the front. And it wasmostly little ones. She referred to nine-year-olds in the audience, which seemed pretty much spot-on – her fan base doesn't seem to have reached the late teens yet.
Her street-style dancers cleverly double as stagehands, even helping with quick costume changes, making for a sleek performance. One jarring interlude was when she introduced a lengthy trailer from her next movie (“I’m honoured to show you guys this clip”), which felt tacky and exploitative, and anyway the wholesome teen movie looked at variance with the stage image she seems determined to cultivate.
The thousands of tweenies in the audience only fully sparked up when she sang a rocked-up version of The Hoedown Showdownand finished with The Climb, leaving this reviewer with the distinct feeling that what they (and their mammies) were there for was Hannah Montana, not this very grown-up Miley Cyrus.
