Justin Timberlake concert brings "SexyBack" to Miami
American Airlines Arena
February 24th
By Martine Powers
February 1997: a new pop band called ‘N Sync was just beginning to make its way onto the music scene with a crowd-pleasing single called "Tearin' Up My Heart." Headed by a goofy-grinned Memphis boy named Justin Timberlake, the group would soon make 12-year-olds around the world go weak at the knees.
Ten years later, this same boy is still making great crowd-pleasing tunes, but his weak-kneed fans have turned into club-hopping twenty-somethings. His style is more hip-hop than teeny bop. And that grin? Not so goofy anymore.
Justin Timberlake’s performance at the American Airlines Arena in Downtown Miami was the nineteenth stop of his nationwide FutureSex/LoveShow tour. A mix of good music, good dancing and good set design, the concert, which is named after Justin’s newest album, successfully catered to the desires of the almost 20,000 Miamians in attendance, most of whom were women.
Two of Timberlake’s newest and most popular hits, “FutureSex/LoveSounds” and “SexyBack,” served as musical bookends. But in between was a crowd-pleasing mix of recent club-ready beats like “What Goes Around…/…Comes Around” and “My Love,” older collaborations such as “Rock Your Body” and “Cry Me a River” and even a performance of “Gone,” harking back to his days of boy-band infamy as a leading member of ‘N Sync.
Justin’s opening act wasn’t particularly inspired. The set consisted of Pink, sans signature fuchsia hair, screaming incomprehensibly into the mic. The intermission, however, featured an eclectic DJ mix of such diverse tunes as Nelly Furtado’s “Promiscuous,” Kelly Clarkson’s “Since U Been Gone,” and the Fray’s “Over My Head,” set to hip-hop backgrounds of Missy Elliot and old-school Michael Jackson.
All in all, the concert was an excellent showcase of Timberlake’s ability to balance great music with killer dance moves, dynamic set design and energetic stage presence. Timberlake tiptoed the line between meticulousness and inventiveness. Though every dance step possessed the precision of a choreographed music video, there was just enough Justin-charm and seemingly-improvised wit to appear spontaneous. A shout-out to “the women of the three-oh-five” sent Timberlake’s female fans screaming at stratospheric levels, while a little ad-libbed bump-and-grind with several of his backup dancers elicited more than a few giddy hoots.
The round stage, structured to sit in the middle of the arena with fans on all sides, only served to further the dynamism of the performance. Before the show, the sides of the stage served as a working bar serving martinis and cosmos to the VIP set, but minutes later, backup dancers were using these bars as catwalks. Additionally, close-up videos of Justin were projected onto a series of mobile, translucent white screens that constantly rose and fell, allowing one to theoretically watch Justin’s actual body and his enlarged face simultaneously.
More than anything, this concert served to prove wrong all who believed that Justin was merely riding out the remainders of his ‘N Sync fame. His music and his live performances are innovative, edgy and anything but wholesome. Make no mistake: Justin Timberlake has outgrown his boy-band persona and left it to disintegrate in the dust; he couldn’t resist performing the explicit version of his unparalleled single, “Sexyback,” including the line, “Them other f***ers don’t know how to act.”
Justin is very, very far from going “Bye Bye Bye.” In fact, it seems that he’s only just beginning to bring sexy back.
Email Martine your thoughts: outloud@outloud.com
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