JULY 31, 2003 12:41PM

Say what you will about Mariah Carey, but no one can deny that she's a master at wowing her devoted fans. The songstress performed for more than two hours Tuesday night at the United Center to promote her most recent album, "Charmbracelet."

The concert drew teen girls and their moms, single young men, couples and groups of girlfriends -- all of whom shared wild screams with Carey's every wave and high note.

Three dancers dressed like circus performers kicked off the show as the singer, flanked by bodyguards, snuck in through the back of the arena. She opened a 16-song set with her dance tune "Heartbreaker."

Carey sported a pink, rhinestone-encrusted microdress, which rivaled Shania Twain's flashy outfit from this year's Super Bowl halftime show.

The show also borrowed from other superstar peers. Carey's eight costume changes and French circus motif gave a nod to Cher's recent concerts. And later, Carey sat suspended above the stage on white drapery that resembled a scene from Jennifer Lopez's 2001 televised concert from Puerto Rico.

Still, the night was all about Mariah and her mighty voice. She shunned the breathy vocals that are a trademark on recent albums, instead belting out powerful notes. Carey performed new material like "Through the Rain" and the sexy "Subtle Invitation," while still offering familiar hits like "Honey" and ballads like "Hero."

This tour is the first since Carey's split with Virgin records. The label paid her $28 million to leave after her 2001 album "Glitter" and its accompanying movie bombed. It is also Carey's first tour since her well-publicized breakdown that same year.

Carey's Web site touts the tour as a series of "intimate" concerts (the United Center was fashioned in a theater set-up, albeit a large one). Still, it allowed Carey and her loyal admirers to feed off each other.

Some of the pop world may remain skeptical that Carey still has a Midas touch. But the singer charmed her way through Chicago as the ringmaster in her delightful circus.

Source: Chicago Daily Herald

Mariah Carey better than ever

She's been out of the limelight for a few years, but Mariah Carey's voice hasn't been silenced. The songstress proved she can still put on quite a show during her concert Tuesday night at Chicago's United Center.

Carey's 90-minute concert was pretty much a showcase for her latest album, "Charmbracelet," but did include a good selection of favorite chart toppers.

The Chicago show was only the second stop of Carey's Charmbracelet tour, which is scheduled to run through September.

Carey began her concert in diva-like fashion, emerging from the back of the venue with guards and entourage surrounding her as she performed "Heartbreaker."

Fans cheered as Carey, wearing a short pink glittery dress and stiletto heels, made her way through the crowd and to the stage.

While Carey's vocals were somewhat drowned out by her band during that first number, the sound occasionally cleared up throughout the rest of the show.

Carey's concert took on a type of vaudevillian-style revue at times, with her dancers and other performers posing as painters and other characters. Some of the scenes were silly, yet at times worked well in the context of the show.

As an entertainer, Carey seems to prefer to weave a theme throughout her shows. The singer's last concert in Chicago in 2000 played up a ridiculous diva theme, but was extremely weak on the music side. While this tour still has Carey romping around her set, there's a bit more emphasis on the music.

The "Charmbracelet" album, which has a hip-hop feel, is perhaps Carey's weakest. But in concert, the tunes from the album sounded better than expected.

Carey, who suffered a very public breakdown in 2001, proved she can still wow her audience with her versatile vocal range and trills, although she's not as strong vocally as she once was.

Her vocals shone through particularly on the ballads "My All, and "Through the Rain," her latest hit.

The concert was also part fashion show, as Carey went through a half dozen costume changes, donning everything from short shorts and tube tops to glamorous long gowns and mini dresses.

Musical standouts included the touching "My Saving Grace" from "Charmbracelet," which Carey said was "my life story set to music."

Other attractive renditions were "Dreamlover," the optimistic "Make It Happen," "Vision of Love," "Fantasy" and "I'll Be There," performed with backup singer Trey Lorenz.

Carey talked to her audience often during the show, and performed a couple of requested songs from a fan poll conducted on her Internet site. She said that the set list would change just a bit nightly on her tour to accommodate fan's requests.

The show wrapped up appropriately with a touching version of "Hero."

Source: Daily Southtown

Carey's tour plays out before dwindling crowds

If there's anything to be learned from Mariah Carey's performance Tuesday night, it is this: You can do anything you want, if you only put your mind to it. Have faith. Believe in yourself. Don't give up. Really. A monthlong shock therapy session with Dr. Phil couldn't promise half as much self-empowerment as this show.

"This is a song about perseverance, pressing on," Carey said early in the set, demurely posing on a chaise longue before launching into the lite-gospel "Through the Rain." "Things like that."

No kidding. Things like that applied to easily half her two-hour set, a veritable checklist of featherweight pop anthems with titles such as "Make It Happen," "Can't Take That Away (Mariah's Theme)," "My All," "Hero" and "My Saving Grace."

But such is the mantra of Carey, who performed in Chicago for the first time after 2001's cinematic fiasco "Glitter," a recording contract fire sale, and its corresponding and well-documented breakdown for the kind of "exhaustion" that never seems to befall non-famous people. This was a show expressly designed to announce that Mariah Is Back, from her inclusion of all those "I will survive"-type numbers to her immediate display of the kind of high-frequency vocal trapeze work that can affect your cell phone reception. Indeed, Carey and her handlers have masterfully turned a gossip-column PR nightmare into a rebirthing theme that, if her stage show is any indication, she intends to pound us into submission with.

It's true that Carey has persevered far more than her detractors might have expected. According to SoundScan, her "comeback" record "Charmbracelet," has moved 1.1 million units nationwide since its release last December--respectable enough, but well off-par for Carey--and this tour, her first in three years, will take her to smaller theaters nationwide.

But on Night 2 of the tour's U.S. leg, there were already signs of trouble. The show took place in the United Center's "theater setting," but even with the 480 level curtained off there were plenty of vacant seats in the mid-level and floor areas. The tour is being touted as an "intimate evening," but the UC at its coziest remains about as intimate as an episode of "Big Brother." And any evening that boasts a cast such as this--at times, Carey was joined by no fewer than 20 dancers, singers and musicians--is hardly intimate, anyway. The show was never sure if it was a single-spotlight cabaret affair or a full-on Cirque du Soleil-esque production complete with cartoonish characters, costume changes and bizarre supporting actors (a jester-dancer in a Detroit Pistons jersey materialized during "Clown," Carey's attitude-heavy retort to the advances of one Marshall Mathers).

Then there's the matter of the diva herself. Carey's fluttery voice--the voice that's launched a thousand "American Idol" auditions--largely remains in fine form, even if it sometimes skirts challenges it would have demolished a few years back. She expertly glided over the backing tracks at times ("My Saving Grace" and "Always Be My Baby") and was overwhelmed by them at others ("Honey"), but showed a single-minded dedication to proving that she still had game.

No, the biggest problem Carey has is that, even by the ultra-choreographed standards of pop shows, this one seemed especially chilly and distant. Despite Carey's blank-check declaration that the Chicago crowd was her "best audience to date," her band was frequently eaten up by the backing tracks, and the pace, oft-interrupted by dance interludes, video snippets and a band introduction process that can only be described as epic, was entirely too choppy. When there weren't anthems, there were pre-taped bids for hip-hop credibility like "Honey" (anybody remember Mase?) or "Fantasy" with the Artist Formerly Known as Ol' Dirty Bastard. Only an unlikely, guitar-fueled cover of Def Leppard's "Bringing on the Heartbreak" really heated up, and it's a testament to the sameness of Carey's catalog that an '80s hair-metal ballad seemed fresh in terms of structure and muscle tone.

It's been a while since her glory days, and it's strange to note that the world's No. 1-selling female artist of all time has trouble filling arenas. While it's heartening to see Carey persevering after her troubles, the fact remains that if the show--and the empty seats--are any indication, her road continues for a while yet.

Source: Chicago Sun-Times

I Spy...

Mini-skirted Mariah Carey was spotted dining at Pane Caldo Tuesday night after her United Center show.

Source: Chicago Sun-Times

Mariah Carey hits the road for rare tour

We all know superstar songbird Mariah Carey for her piercing falsetto, a staggering list of chart-topping hits so lengthy that she released a CD titled "#1's," and the recent smash "I Know What You Want" with Busta Rhymes. We also know her for a sexpot fashion sense, a punch line known as "Glitter," a suspected nervous breakdown and a record-label buyout of her contract.

What most of us don't know about the pop diva is what she's like in concert. Though Carey has excelled when it comes to making and breaking records, she's no road warrior. Carey's embarked on major tours once or twice, but she's largely stuck to major markets, and her itinerary has never included St. Louis.

All that's about to change with a scheduled appearance Friday at the Fox.

Explaining her reasons for not touring heavily, Carey says, "It's all about having the time in between shows to rest your voice. It's a rough thing if you don't take care of it. It's rigorous being on stage. So touring isn't the most practical thing for me to do. But with an album that's as personal to me as this one (her latest, 'Charmbracelet'), like it was with 'Butterfly,' it's time to do a tour. I do enjoy touring."

The most successful singer of the '90s in terms of hits, Carey is also happy do some talking. Just don't ask her about slipping record sales for "Charmbracelet," radio's loss of love for her sound or Virgin Records' cutting her loose after signing her to a history-making deal. While you're at it, don't ask about any possible feuds with Eminem or J. Lo.

Carey's publicist makes certain that the singer's five-minute interviews with news outlets - conducted while she was on tour in Japan recently - were strictly limited to her first-ever theater tour - dubbed such after it was scaled down from arenas.

Last year's "Charmbracelet" includes "Through the Rain," a classic-sounding Carey pop ballad, and "Boy (I Need You)," a hip-hop-flavored cut with rapper Cam'ron. It is the album that got Carey back out on the road because, she says, "I went through a lot of things while making the album."

To say the least. "Charmbracelet," which has sold more than a million copies, is the first CD from Carey after her career nadir, which included the failure of the "Glitter" CD and movie, and her abrupt exit from Virgin Records, which severed its contract in a severe example of damage control.

"There were so many personal situations I was involved in," she says. "So this is an album I'm very proud of. I wanted to go out and express some of those emotions I'm feeling to my fans."

She says she'll perform about four songs from "Charmbracelet," though the show will include as many of her greatest hits as she can squeeze in. Carey obviously has an unlimited supply of material.

Carey created an immediate splash with her debut, 1990's "Mariah Carey," which was so successful that it could serve as a greatest-hits CD with smashes such as "Vision of Love," "I Don't Wanna Cry," "Someday" and "Love Takes Time." Carey followed her breakthrough with a string of records that some say stressed quantity over quality, but that didn't stop CDs like 1991's "Emotions" and 1993's "Music Box" from reaching the top.

Carey proved to be the only singer at the time who could give Whitney Houston a run for her money, and her restraint-free vocals served as a blueprint for Christina Aguilera and a number of "American Idol" wannabes.

By the mid-'90s, her music took a different direction, and she relied heavily on dance-music remixers and rappers. She has recorded with P. Diddy, Ludacris, Mystikal, Jermaine Dupri, Da Brat and Bone Thugs-N-Harmony, to mixed result. By the time she got to "Glitter" in 2001, however, she'd completely overdosed on the hip-hop format.

In concert, Carey says she makes sure to include material from each album, with songs such as "Hero," "Fantasy," "Heartbreaker" and "I Know What You Want" among the can't-do-without choices. Obviously, some songs won't make the cut, though it'd be a shame if "Make It Happen," "Breakdown" or "I Still Believe" were among them. On the other hand, save for "Loverboy," Carey might be advised to avoid the "Glitter" CD.

Carey is allowing fans to help her decide which songs to perform through her official fan club, Honey B. Fly, accessible at her Web site, www.mariahcareyfanclub.com.

"I wanted the fans to pick what they wanted to hear, and I was surprised by some of the songs," she says.

For example, Carey didn't expect fans to request such "Charmbracelet" album cuts as "Subtle Invitation" and "Clown."

"I think the diehard fans really got into this," she says. "They enjoy being a part of it."

Early buzz on the tour wasn't good after her shows suddenly went from arenas to theaters, and Ashanti dropped off the bill. But Carey says downsizing the tour was a good decision.

"Otherwise, I have a tendency to micromanage everything," she says, "and that can be a problem, especially when you're trying to enjoy yourself as well. I didn't want to have to think about the pyro stuff or the sound system.

"And it was the right thing to have an intimate setting. Fans would be very disappointed if they didn't get a chance to feel what's on stage. It's all about communicating with an audience."

Source: St. Louis Post-Dispatch

"Bringin' On The Heartbreak" single to be cancelled?

The Universal Music Group has decided to cancel the commercial single release of “Bringin’ On The Heartbreak” in France because of the insufficient radio play the track has been receiving. There may be a few days before a final decision is made, so it’s up to Mariah’s fans to get busy and start requesting her new single!

Below is a list of contacts for various French radio and television outlets that will hopefully generate a positive buzz for “Bringin’ On The Heartbreak.” Please help out by requesting the song. Together we can make “Bringin’ On The Heartbreak” a worldwide hit!

How To Request
Obviously, since these radio stations and music video channels are located in France, your requests must be in French. Here are three examples of how you can politely request the song: