Pauly D to join Britney Spears on tour

Britney Spears' concert tour is headed down the "Jersey Shore."

MTV reports that DJ Pauly D will open for Spears during six of her dates in August.

"I am so excited to be performing on the Britney Spears 'Femme Fatale' tour," Shore said in a statement.


"Britney is one of my favorite performers and certainly one of this generation's most influential artists. It's an amazing platform to connect with my fans around the country." Pauly D is sure to rock lots of tunes during his portion of the show, but Spears' songs won't be among them.

"A DJ should not play the artist's songs at her concert 'cause she has to perform these songs," he said. "I'm not going to be playing any Britney before she performs; maybe after. I'll let her perform, let her shine 'cause it's her night."

Pauly D will kick off his appearances August 17 at Spears' concert in Grand Rapids, Michigan.

Source is http://marquee.blogs.cnn.com/2011/07/26/pauly-d-to-join-britney-spears-on-tour/

Britney Spears Cries and Farts to Scare Kids: Ex-Bodyguard

Just when you thought that Britney Spears was getting back on track with her new album Femme Fatale, she has hit the headlines again. This time, her ex-bodyguard has come up with fresh allegations against her, a Herald Sun report stated.

Recently, her seventh studio album has debuted at number one on the Billboard hot 100, making her join the ranks of Mariah Carey to be only the second artist in history to have two singles debut at number one. The album's sales soared in the United States and has apparently sold over 590,000 copies.

However, it looks like Spears is far from the squeaky clean image which she used to have during her Baby One More Time days .

Her bodyguard has come up with fresh claims in a recently filed lawsuit against her. The lawsuit claims he was harassed by her and says that she had obnoxious hygiene and used to scare her kids by crying and farting in front of them. He also adds that she picked her nose in front of everyone and hardly ever took a bath and did not brush her teeth for days.

Fernando Flores, her ex-bodyguard, had already filed a lawsuit against her for sexual harassment last year. The all new claims by him could be a huge blow to her already tarnished image. He has also spoken about her taking a cocktail of drugs and smelling of stale tobacco all the time. For somebody like Britney, who is considered the pop princess and a mother of two, allegations of having poor hygiene is one of the worst accusations to come by.

Wonder what Spears has to say about her never ending troubles with her ex-bodyguard and his fresh accusations!

Source is http://www.ibtimes.com/articles/185555/20110723/britney-spears-fernando-flores.htm

Britney's show tired, outshone by her opener, Nicki Minaj

I’ll admit that my personal agenda of the evening was mainly to see Nicki Minaj, but having to sit through the anticlimactic Britney Spears set was a heavy price to pay. As I uttered when the countdown to Brit’s performance dwindled on the big screen and the lights went down in the AmericanAirlines Arena on Friday, “Let’s just get through this.”

The show was an overblown and underwhelming spectacle with all the generic elements and story lines you can throw on one stage. Spears opened with “Hold It Against Me” to find the Femme Fatale eluding authorities (assumingly for ticket gouging). But attempts to entrance the audience with the obligatory (and overused) rise above the audience routine, along fireworks and Brit’s stiff dancing, were contrived and blasé. Even the “…Baby One More Time” lead into Rihanna’s “S&M” fell short, probably because it was performed in the never sexy and quite tired dominatrix garb. We get it Brit, you are trying to shed the pop tart image.

Random Marilyn Monroe and Cleopatra references, along with cartoonish Japanese skits and design sets, were more self-indulgent than engaging. Relying heavily on mechanical props, moving platforms and an army of dancers to propel this performance to the level her fans wish it would be instead faltered. Perhaps now that the theatrics have become stale it’s time to do better than 40 percent live?

Before Brit Brit even pretended to sing a note, she may have left a bad taste in some of her fans’ mouths, when floor seats are at an outlandish $350 – and merchandise everywhere down to commemorative Britney sodas at $8. But then that’s how the Britney machine rolls.

For such heinous acts against music lovers the pop diva should deliver more than an evening with one of her CDs blasting at high volume. But the near sell-out crowd didn’t seem to bat a fake eyelash or flip a neon pink wig. By the time Britney performed “Toxic” and “Till The World Ends”, the crowd was into it and all was forgiven between Britney and her fans. I just hope those who had floor seats weren’t amongst the dozens walking to their car uttering, “She wasn’t lip-syncing the whole time.”

Of course, on this particular Pink Friday the effervescent Nicki Minaj was the energetic, hip-hop delight I was hoping for. With a bedazzled mic in fist and a small accompaniment of dancers, Nicki romped and gyrated, getting things jumping with “Roman’s Revenge”.

The show also featured Sean Kingston making his first appearance since his near-fatal watercraft accident over the Memorial Day weekend. Kingston joined Minaj for “Letting Go (Dutty Love)” in a set heavy with “featuring Nicki Minaj” tracks. I’d love to see her remove the unnecessary story line, Enya sequences and hype up the production value, so hip hop’s royalty won’t have to open for the likes of Britney Spears any more.
Jessie and the Toy Boys opened the entire evening, entertaining the arriving crowd who were trying to locate seats and situate cocktails with their quick set of dance pop songs.

Source is http://www.pbpulse.com/music/concert-reviews/live-shows/2011/07/23/britneys-show-tired-outshone-by-her-opener-nicki-minaj/

Britney Spears surrounds herself with spectacles at Nashville concert

One of the more spectacular shows currently playing in Las Vegas is Cirque du Soleil's Love, in which a team of world-class acrobats and dancers perform amazing feats to the strains of the Beatles' music, taking decades-old recordings and making a brand-new, visceral live experience.

It's not unlike what Nashville got when Britney Spears' "Femme Fatale" tour came to town Monday night - except that Spears wasn't just being piped in through the speakers. She was there in the flesh, the calm eye of a storm of frenzied dancers, laser lights and stage machinery.

She didn't walk on stage as much as she was delivered to it, as one of her latest hits, "Hold It Against Me," thumped oppressively in Bridgestone Arena. One platform pushed her through a crack in the massive video screen backdrop. Another brought her down to the stage's lower level, where, between a few quick dance steps, she sat on a metallic throne that slid her a few feet closer to the squealing crowd.

The following tune "Up N' Down" had Spears in a mechanized cage that handled all of the rising and falling action, and a conveyor belt on the catwalk then helped her move towards the center of the arena. At a close distance, fans could see that Spears was definitely singing. Whether or not that voice was the same one we heard coming through the speakers remains up for debate.

The 2011 Britney Spears live experience is thoroughly artificial - fitting for a girl that was labeled a cookie-cutter pop product since her breakout 1999 hit "...Baby One More Time." But unlike in the ultra-glossy days of "Baby," all of Monday night's added sheen and spectacle seemed absolutely necessary.

Nearly four years ago - when Spears first began restoring order to a very turbulent personal life - she made a disastrous "comeback" appearance on the MTV Video Music Awards and was quickly ripped to shreds for her transparent lip-synching and turtle's pace choreography. Since then, the bar has been drastically lowered as far as what audiences expect from a Britney Spears performance, but she's continued to rebound.

Spears isn't catatonic on stage these days, just a lot more casual. She's more than happy to sit back - literally, some dance routines had her sitting down, shaking her hair in leiu of her hips - and watch everyone else have a good time at the party she's hosting.

That leaves a lot of work for her dancers, who not only wowed/distracted the crowd with moves worthy of an Olympic gymnast's floor routine, but acted as Spears' personal stage assistants, guiding her into position for choreographed routines and handing off pieces of clothing for onstage costume changes. The throngs of fans in the nearly full Bridgestone Arena chipped in with plenty of energy as well, many of them only standing still long enough to take a steady shot of Spears when she strutted their way.

But one member of the audience was actually encouraged to take a seat, albeit with Britney and her crew onstage. It was none other than Tennessee Titan Kenny Britt, who found himself handcuffed to a pole and draped in a pink boa with Spears sitting on his shoulders. It's a nightly ritual during Spears' performance of "Lace and Leather," though the audience participant isn't usually a public figure. Thanks to Twitter, photos of Britt and Brit were all over sports sites before the show was over.

The rest of Spears' fans had to settle for an increasingly quick-hitting trip through her catalogue - a collection that any mature, self-assured music lover will admit includes some of the most finely crafted pop songs of the last decade. A few of them - "Baby" and "Toxic," for starters - lost their original magic to pointless disco-thump updates, but others - "I'm a Slave 4 U" and "Womanizer" - sounded as saccharine and sultry as ever.

Spears' inevitable encore was capped with her latest chart-topper, "Til the World Ends," which featured an appearance from the tour's current opening act, hip-hop sensation Nicki Minaj. But Minaj didn't return to the stage she'd performed on less than two hours before - she appeared during Spears' encore via a pre-recorded video rap.

Between that and a night of dubiously "live" vocals, it might seem that Britney Spears' fans couldn't care less about the human touch in music. Still, on Monday night, they were sending some very sincere waves of adoration and gratitude towards Spears - who, through some forgivable flaws, seems more human than ever.

This entry was posted in Concert Reviews, Reviews and tagged bridgestone arena, Britney Spears, concert reviews, nicki minaj, pop. Bookmark the permalink.

Source is http://blogs.tennessean.com/tunein/2011/07/19/britney-spears-surrounds-herself-in-spectacle-at-nashville-concert/

Britney Spears: Looks great, less filling

The setup was grand – a busy stage stocked with metal scaffolding, stairs, a circular video screen and hydraulics.


The set list was curious – a cover of Rihanna’s “S&M” instead of another of her own numerous hits, even if she is on the remix?


The full but not-quite-sold-out audience was super-stoked – of course their heroine can never, ever be considered anything less than perfect.


And yet Britney Spears looked bored, a Robo-Barbie slogging through dance moves that used to crackle with confidence and singing (well, not really) a string of club thumpers virtually indistinguishable from one another.


But before going any further, let’s just say that Spears deserves enormous praise for enduring an insane amount of personal and professional pressure in recent years and for soldiering through the type of tabloid lifestyle no mere mortal could ever understand.


She looked terrific at Sunday’s Philips Arena show, toned and healthy in numerous belly-baring getups (sexy detective, sexy biker, sexy Egyptian princess – you get the point) and it is hoped she is winning every psychological battle in her roller coaster of a life.


That said, any artist who charges $100-plus for a decent seat (and up to $350 for the closest glimpses) really should deliver a jaw-dropping, emotionally searing performance and, while there was certainly plenty to look at during Spears’ 90-minute set, most of it was like a magician’s act, designed to distract from its ultimate hollowness.


It didn’t matter if she was mildly gyrating inside a rather shaky-looking metal cage during “Up n’ Down” or rising above the crowd on what looked like an upside-down bar stool for “Piece of Me,” with seven mostly bare-chested men writhing beneath her. Spears’ movements were always dispassionate, as if she knows the adrenaline from her aerobics class hits is enough to satisfy her worshipful fans.


That was most obvious during “Big Fat Bass,” a nonsensical song (“I can be your treble, baby, you can be my bass,” goes its chorus…whatever that means) designed for 3 a.m. drunken dance parties.


Obviously, there is no point in discussing singing at a Spears show because aside from the ballad “Don’t Let Me Be the Last to Know,” crooned in her reedy voice, any other “vocals” were their usual expert melding of processing and lip-synching. The complete lack of close-ups on any video screen guaranteed that the truth could never be determined.


Throughout the show, a running narrative about Spears as a “femme fatale” on the lam rolled whenever a set or costume change was needed. But aside from playing into the title of her latest album, which has spawned a trio of hits, it was merely another anemic distraction.


Despite Spears’ limited interaction with the audience (“What’s up, Atlanta??!!!?” and the invite for a handful of fans to dance onstage in her vicinity during “I Wanna Go” don’t really count), there are still a few sparks in her catalog which no amount of detached performances can erase.


The melody line of “Toxic,” the snaky funk of “I’m a Slave 4 U,” the pop purity of “…Baby One More Time” (which, criminally, got the one-verse treatment before segueing into Rihanna’s “S&M”) – they’re all career-defining songs for a reason.


But Spears has always thrived as a fabricated MTV doll, and, even as she approaches 30, that hasn’t changed.


Opener Nicki Minaj, meanwhile, had no issues with energy, as she fed off the hyperactive lighting throughout her set and delivered a stream of fiery raps.


Joined by six dancers, a drummer and keyboardist, Minaj, sporting a platinum wig, ripped though more than a dozen songs, including “Check It Out” and “Moment 4 Life.”


It’s always fun picking out the samples Minaj weaves into her songs (an Enya interlude featured Minaj play-battling a hooded figure in front of a pink lightning storm) and while you couldn’t always understand her lyrics if you didn’t already know them, the intoxicating beats usually compensated.


While watching Minaj stroll a catwalk while jubilantly shooting Silly String into the crowd during the set-closing “Super Bass,” it was impossible not to get zinged by her buzzy intensity.


Source is http://blogs.ajc.com/atlanta-music-scene/2011/07/18/britney-spears-looks-great-less-filling/?cxntlid=thbz_hm

Britney Spears Takes Over Philly

Two femme fatales will visit Philly in just two weeks and if you want to see Britney Spears and Nicki Minaj, you better grab your tickets.


The two superstars will take the stage at the Wells Fargo Center on July 30.


Fans are in for a quite a show from Brit. Although known for lip-syncing, Perez Hilton said she sings live for parts of the show after watching a preview of the tour last month.


“As a fan, that’s a sign to me that she’s trying, she’s giving, and I love that – that’s what we want.” Perez said in a video blog.


If you have seats close enough, you may even be lucky enough to dance with Britney. The Hollywood Reporter said the singer interacts with some audience members on stage in this tour.


Brit's set list includes some oldies but goodies such as “Baby One More Time," “I’m A Slave 4 U," and “Boys." Most of her Femme Fatale album will be featured in her 90-minute set including her most recent single “I Wanna Go,” according to JustJared.com.


Tickets are still available and since there's only a few weeks left until she takes the stage, we suggest you order your tickets now!


Source is http://www.nbcphiladelphia.com/the-scene/events/Next-Stop-on-the-Femme-Fatale-Tour-Philly-125648523.html

Confirmed! Pauly D to Join Britney Spears on Tour

After much teasing, Jersey Shore's resident beat-beating, spiky-haired, house music-pumping DJ has finally secured a spot on Britney Spears' Femme Fatale Tour. Pauly D opened for Britney one night at the Palms in Las Vegas to celebrate his DJ-in-residency gig with the resort and casino, but signing on for the whole tour fell through when Britney chose Nicki Minaj as her opening act.


Now, Pauly has officially signed on to open for the pop princess for at least four of her North American tour dates. You can catch Pauly spinning August 17 in Grand Rapids, MI; August 19 in Pittsburgh, PA; August 20 in Columbus, OH; and August 22 in Indianapolis, IN.


No opener has been confirmed for Britney's last two tour stops in North Carolina, but rumors are swirling that Pauly may snag those dates as well after shooting of Season 5 wraps. We’re crossing our fingers that Pauly sweeps Britney off her feet and wifes her up — she could use a stand-up guy like him!


Source: Examiner