“…Cher isn’t just any artist. At 67 (she’ll be 68 later this month), she’s the oldest female artist currently touring a full-scale arena show. But when she wore the floor-length Native American headdress and stick-straight black hair during ‘Half-Breed,’ it was as if time had stopped in 1973.
…So how does an AARP-card-carrying diva rule an arena for almost two hours and 17 songs? She paces herself, and takes a couple inches off her stilettos.
….[She] soared through the crowd looking as if she’d stepped from a Raphaelite painting during the closer of ‘I Hope You Find It.’
…As much as Cher played the over-the-top Vegas diva, what fans really like about her is when she gets real. For all the plastic surgery, skin, men, and incredible acting credits, Cher came off as pretty normal.
“For ‘Half Breed,’ she donned a Native American headdress and little else. (The recent kerfuffle involving the Flaming Lips, the daughter of the governor of Oklahoma and a native American headdress was clearly not an issue.)
I hadn’t heard about this. Here is the story, the latest controversey involving American Indian appropriation. I still wonder how Cher gets away with this without similar critique.
…During a montage of Cher movie moments, a fan could be heard exclaiming appreciatively, ‘Silkwood—now that’s my shit!'”
New York City
Catherine Zeta-Jones and Michael Douglas at the show
“Rosie O’Donnell, Liza Minelli make guest appearance onstage during Cindy Lauper’s opening set ahead of Cher’s ‘Dressed to Kill’ performance in Brooklyn Friday.
…It’s a bird! It’s a plane! It’s Cher!
…The unkillable star swooped into Barclays Center on Friday with all the oddity and wonder of a superhero, if not a UFO.
…After more than half a century of media exposure, it’s still hard to prepare for the sight of a 68-year-old woman teetering on a sky-high platform, while crowned with a multitiered headdress of feathers, looking like nothing so much as the Queen of the Peacock People.
…Needless to say, Cher gets the joke in all this better than anyone. But sometimes it seems like she gets it too well. The star can claim a seriously catchy, and impressively varied, trove of thrilling hits — from “The Beat Goes On” right through the new “Woman’s World.” And her vibrato-heavy, pansexual vocals have a timbre, and a style, like no other singer.
…Of course, much of the show’s joy, and even its poignancy, came from its mission to defy common notions of taste, age and even self-parody. The lazy would call it camp. But it’s beyond that. Ultimately, it can only be described as just so incredibly Cher.”
This article has really good pics and a trailer for the show. Another page on the show.
“Cher still rules.
…Unlike Lady Gaga, Cher isn’t giving away hundreds of tickets in order to make her shows look full. Unlike Madonna, she isn’t starting her shows two hours late.”
“Some musical events are concerts. Some are shows.
…But Cher always crafts her live outings as something completely unique – spectacles that are embellished to the point of excess. A concert within a show within a Broadway production.
…Cher planted her empowerment flag and let it fly for the night.
…While chatter will inevitably focus on the glitziest showpieces – the ginormous golden horse that opened to reveal a blonde-wigged Cher for the dance floor popper ‘Take it Like a Man,’ the well-produced Cher-as-vampire video preceding ‘Dressed to Kill’ – some of the show’s most memorable moments came without the razzle dazzle.
…And while the glitzy neon-clad dancers that pumped up ‘Believe’ were fun to watch, it was far more meaningful observing Cher close out the night with the new ballad, ‘I Hope You Find It,’ as she flew over the crowd while belting the poignant song.”
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