JANET Jackson, the singer whose brother was the late King of Pop Michael Jackson, filled the mammoth Teatro Montecasino to capacity for two days in a row. Both the Friday and Saturday shows were sold out. On Saturday Jackson sang for a rainbow nation audience that had come to watch one of the favourite American stars sing in South Africa for the first time.
She took her audience down memory lane, performing mainly hit songs from her number one albums. Though the crowd applauded her several times, Jackson seemed to struggle to connect well with the captive crowd. When she invited the audience to sing along and dance, they appeared to do so as a matter of courtesy since there was not that immediate rapport between the star and her fans.
In a move that surprised her audience she remained tugged into her black pants and a simple blue T-shirt throughout the show and did not change her attire during the short intervals, breaking with the tradition of mainly American musicians who during their performances tend to change their costumes several times as part of their stage magic. Interestingly, during the short breaks the audience was given a rare peek into her life through sexy pictures that were beamed on to big screens. In some of the pictures the musician, who released her first album in 1982 at age 16, was showing generous amount of flesh.
For close to two hours Jackson performed mainly her popular hits and the mesmerised audience hummed and sang the lyrics along with her. She then dedicated one of her favourite songs, Scream, to her Johannesburg fans. The 45-year-old, who in April 1974 at the age of seven made her public debut at a Las Vegas nightclub with the Jackson Five, will be in Cape Town at the Grand west casino tomorrow. Her South African tour is part of her worldwide tour dubbed Up Close and Personal, performing mainly in intimate venues, ironically to connect with the audience. (Sowetan)
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