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closeMonday, Oct. 19, 2009
Cyrus leaving Hannah Montana in the dust
By MARIO TARRADELL
Special to dfw.com
Special to the S-T/John F. Rhodes
Miley Cyrus played American Airlines Center in Dallas on Sunday. Special to the S-T/John F. Rhodes
Pics 10.18.09: Miley Cyrus concert at the AACHannah Montana might as well be history. The successful Disney Channel series has one more season to go, but Miley Cyrus has already moved on.
Her concert before a sold-out crowd Sunday night at American Airlines Center was a showcase for Cyrus the singer, actress and entertainer, not the TV star. She clearly has much bigger endeavors in mind.
It’s telling that the bulk of the material making up her 80-minute set came from 2007’s Meet Miley Cyrus, 2008’s Breakout and the new EP, The Time of Our Lives. It’s also notable that she showed the trailer for The Last Song, her 2010 coming-of-age film, and then sang a piano ballad from the movie.
Cyrus, 16, is in that awkward teenager-to-adult phase. She’s trying to figure out how to hold on to those tween and teen fans who showed up in mass quantities at the show, while trying to grow up artistically and personally.
Nothing she did on that platform should stir controversy, but she’s not a kid anymore.
There’s an ambitious twinkle in her eye. She enjoyed cavorting across the stage in hip-hugging shorts and curvy tops. Employing a seven-piece band and 10 dancers, Cyrus used seven video screens to create a symbiotic relationship between real and virtual.
Breakout, Start All Over, Bottom of the Ocean and Fly On the Wall all played like music videos come to life. She took to the air a couple of times, once with bungee cords and the other on a motorcycle that flew above the audience.
Cyrus is a serviceable singer. She’s got lung power but not much vocal personality. Her brand of pop isn’t special or novel. It just gets the job done, especially for her constituency, which thrives on energy and hooks and that’s it.
The most memorable tune from the show was Party In the U.S.A., her current single, precisely because it employs a quasi-funk beat folded into the pop formula. It felt like another step toward womanhood. Hannah Montana who?
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