Carey can't dance, but sure can sing
By Dan DeLuca, Philadelphia Inquirer, August 14, 2006

Mariah Carey is a singer, not a dancer, which puts the mega-selling pop diva at an immediate disadvantage when it comes to mounting an arena-size spectacle like "The Adventures of Mimi" tour, which played to a not-quite-sold-out Wachovia Center on Friday.

Pop stars are expected to be buff, athletic entertainers leading phalanxes of gymnastic dancers as they tirelessly work oversize rooms, giving their all while simultaneously offering glimpses into their inner lives between song confessionals and videotaped interludes.

"The Adventures of Mimi" - the sobriquet comes from Carey's nickname, which also supplied the title of The Emancipation of Mimi, the best-selling album of 2005 - altered that strategy slightly.

Her stage presence is ungainly - she doesn't walk, much less dance, with grace - but Carey's famously frilly four-octave voice provided the athletic oh-wows, and she moved slowly about the stage in a series of hubba-hubba underwear and evening-gown ensembles, singing 16 years' worth of palliative pop and R&B and hip-hop-flavored hits.

Carey's string of successes is impressive: from 1990's "Vision of Love" to this year's hortatory "Fly Like a Bird," described as "so inspirational to me."

But hits are not enough to hold together a career-summarizing arena show. There must be a narrative arc. The thematic glue in this case, lamely proffered in a video voice-over intro, is how Carey's life is "like a rollercoaster," from her marriage and divorce to record exec Tommy Mottola to her emotional breakdown after the failure of 2001's Glitter to her triumphant return with Mimi.

Later, another clip displayed the night's one flash of wit, showing a group of fans dishing on Carey in front of a ladies-room mirror, questioning whether her breasts or even her legs ("I hear she's had them stretched") were real.

The 90-minute show was overly busy in its staging and choppily paced. But though Carey's singing is more noteworthy for its dexterity than its character, she connected with her intergenerational audience throughout, most engagingly in a series of duets with rappers (Missy Elliott, Jay-Z, the late, great Ol' Dirty Bastard) who joined her on video screens. She hit all the high notes, and did succeed in transforming the creamy ballad "We Belong Together" into a frighteningly intense declaration of obsessive love.

DJ Clue kept the crowd moving during costume changes, proving to be as skilled a crowd-pleaser as his boss as he spun snippets of Snoop Dogg and Salt 'n Pepa and exhorted the crowd to make some noise by demanding that "all the ugly people be quiet."