Its Exactly 8:00 pm at the Circus Maximus Showroom when the lights are turned down and a voice welcomes us to the show presenting as an opening act comedian: Mark Pitta.
Then after 20 minutes, says goodbye, the lights are turned off and a voice says: Ladys and Gentlemen, Caesars Palace is proud to present in her debut at the Cirsus Maximus Showrrom, Vanessa Williams!. The curtain is iluminated while going up, and there she is. Standing at the middle of the stage and gorgeous as always.
Vanessa is at the top of a few stairs. She is wearing a strapless gold dress with two very high cuts on the sides. Her hair is pulled back in a pony tail with some curls at the bottom. She comes down the stairs and begins the concert singing: THE COMFORT ZONE.
Flawless and Perfect she ends the first song which she sang at the center of the stage with a mic stand and without much moves exept for her hands. Then, without a stop she smoothly starts DREAMIN'.
Now its time to greet us as she says: Goodnight Las Vegas!!!
She takes her mic and walks towards the piano player and musical director Rob Mathes. And without stoping they sing LOVE IS.
After that Vanessa presents Rob Mathes, people applaude as crazy 'cause the guy sings really good!. Vanessa says: "This song was from The Beverly Hills 90210 soundtrack for those of you trivia maniacs". Then Vanessa says she has taken so long to tour after 9 years of being in the business 'cause of her kids, but that this are her first solo performances in the U.S. "Its been a while" V says. She adds that the only thing left to do in this cases is to SURRENDER.
While singing Surrender Vanessa is no longer with a mic stand instead she has started moving all over. Without any stop Vanessa says that the time has arrived to have some HAPPINESS.
Happiness in my opinion was one of the best performances of the night given the fact that one would imagine that it is a difficult song to sing live. It goes flawless and sounds even better than the CD. Vanessa's voice is at her best. In fact she ever sounds much better and powerfull live. By this time V interacts more with her band. She gets nearer to her 2 background singers, also gets nearer to her guitar player, which I must says is the most dynamic, dancing, smiling of her band. She talks with Rob and says to him: "Ok Rob, give it to me" as he makes those strange sounds in Happiness. Vanessa gets even more applause with this songs and says: " Ok! girls, you know that when we get home we have some WORK TO DO".
Vanessa marbeled the audience again, you could only hear wonderful things people were saying after each song she ended. The most general comment I heard was: I didnt imagine she would sound this good live. After ending Work To Do Vanessa said: " This next song, you may recognize, is about a little native girl, hint!, hint! and its called COLORS OF THE WIND"
Vanessa sang Colors of the Wind very similarly to how she sang it at the Oscars. Walked some stairs down and then arrive to the mic stand where she put it, to then finish the song making lots of moves with her arms.
So far Color of the wind has been the most ovationated song of the concert with Happiness behind. Without moving a lot and without stoping she started singing THE SWEETEST DAYS.
After ending the Sweetest Days Vanessa says that she would like to introduce us to another new song from Next and that this one happens to be also her new single: FIRST THING ON YOUR MIND.
Now Vanessa says that its time to travel to Brazil and although the song has nothing to do with Brazil they have incorportaed for this occassion some Brazilian sounds. A song starts but we dont recognize it, she stars vocalizing AMAZINGLY GOOD with different sounds to then smoothly break into; CONSTANTLY.
This new Version sounds 10 times better than the one in the CD, and not that the one in the CD is bad, but this one sounded much better.The song ends but the music keeps playing to the same rhytm and Vanessa takes this oportunity to present us her band: Leo on Keyboards, Rob as musical director, guitar, as well as keyboards, Al on base, Keith on guitar, JT on drums, Ron on percussions and Meredith and Heather on Backgrounds. While saying each one of their names each of the band memebers make a solo with their instrument and then unite together to begin: YOU CANT RUN.
Halfway to the song a dancer appears on the stairs. He slowly moves toward Vanessa, grabs her mic stand takes it a way and they begin the famous dance number, which I may add was AMAZING!!!! In this part the people couldnt believe their eyes, they cheered, applaude, shouted, whisle, etc.. At the end of the dance Vanessa dissapears. Then a light goes on, iluminanting just Rob Mathes on the Keyboard. As he says this is THE EASIEST THING.
First a lady moaned like in dissapointment for Vanessa not singing this song, but when she heard him sing she forgot all, 'cause he sanged AMAZINGLY GOOD! and at 3/4 of the song Vanessa appears again to finish the song. And says lets hear it for Rob who also wrote the song, Rob!.
This time Vanessa is wearing a different dress. All Red. Long, but without cuts on the sides. Its all satin exept for the upper part wich is made of those bright small things (forgot the name) also in red. Vanessa says that now it time for the Jazz part of the show and asks for a chair. The chair doesnt appear and Vanessa says to the people in the back that how is she supposed to sing the jazz section without a chair. The chair finally arrives and she sings WHAT WILL I TELL MY HEART.
Then Vanessa says that the next song we might have heard and that it also was a big hit for her in Japan last year. She sings: ALFIE.
After finishing Alfie Vanessa asks if there are Van Morrison fans in the audience. A lot of people cheer as she says, well then you might recognize this song which I adore. SOMEONE LIKE YOU.
Then Vanessa says that its time for a very sassy song as she sings PEEL ME A GRAPE
With Peel me a Grape Vanessa got an amizing cheer and althoug some people where not familiar with the song the loved it. Especially the sexy moves Vanessa made while singing the song. Then Vanessa says this is for all the males in the audience, what were you thinkin?, the she goes to her background singers and asks them, this men, who were they thinkin' 'bout. WHO WERE YOU THINKIN' 'BOUT
Then the saddest as I heard the first notes to Save the Best For Last. I knew it was all over. And this time Vanessa got the biggest cheer of the night. People went crazy when they heard the first notes of the song. And all thru out the song everybody sang, whisle, applaueded, standed, etc... We knew that in fact she SAVE THE BEST FOR LAST.
The lights go out for a second, come back as they iluminate Vanessa who says: Thankyou! and takes a vow. She leaves. The light go up a little but nobody moves, WE WANT MORE VANESSA!!!!!!!!. We applaude and applaude and applaude all stanging up. Then we hear the first notes of: BETCHA NEVER.
This time Vanessa is wearing a black dress. All shiny again and those great side cuts are in it as well. She sings Betcha Never. The dancer appears on one side of the stage again as Vanessa is in the other side. People cheer like crazy ' cause everybody was hungry of seing Vanessa dancing one more time. Well, she does. She puts her mic down and they dance again. And this time even BETTER (if possible) than the first one. She spins, passes under, gets in the sky, and ends the song sitting in the dancers legs. As a voice says: Ladys and Gentlemen lets hear it for Vanessa Williams. She leaves. People continue cheering. She comes back sends a kiss to all the sides, waves good bye and this times leaves without coming back.
Show end.
Every body stood there with their jaw droppend amazed of how well Vanessa sang and especially danced. You could only hear great comments as: She is so beautiful!!, I didnt knew she could dance!!, Her voice was amazing!!!!, Did you looked how well she was dressed!!!, ALL KINDS OF GREAT COMMENTS. Some people even tried to buy tickets for Sundays concert only to find they were allready sold out.
SONGS: (in order)
1. The Comfort Zone
2. Dreamin
3. Love is
4. Surrender
5. Happiness
6. Work to Do
7. Colors of the wind
8. The Sweetest Days
9. First Thing On You Mind
10. Constantly
11. You Can't Run
12. The Easiest Thing
13. What Will I Tell My Heart
14. Someone Like You
15. Peel Me A Grape
16. Who Were You Thinkin' 'Bout?
17. Save The Best For Last
18. Betcha Never
End.
Total Time: 1:30 mins.
Total Time with Opening Act: 1:50 mins.
Total Songs: 18
Dance Numbers: 2
Encores: 1
Band Members: 6
Background Singers: 2
Dress Changes: 3
Most Ovationated Song: Save The Best For Last
In Second Place: Betcha Never and Happiness
Ticket Cost: $ 60.00 USD
Total Audience: 1,000 = SOLD OUT.
To hear it from someone else this is the LAS VEGAS JOURNAL REVIEW of the first concert:
IT HAPPENED LAST NIGHT
Vanessa rules the Palace
By Joe Delaney
The debut of Vanessa Williams at Caesars Palce Circus Maximus on Thursday was an auspicious occasion. A beautiful woman with voice to match, tastefully gowned with several dramatic changes, she gave the considerable assemblage a generous 18-song, 80-minute program that was preceded by 20 minutes of comedy by personable Mark Pitta, who started slowly and wound up a winner.
Williams is currently hot on film with " Soul Food ". All four of her album releases to date have been certified either gold or platinum. " Colors of the Wind " from the Disney film " Pocahontas ", earned her a grammy award nomination. She made a major score on Broadway in " Kiss of the Spider Woman ". Based upon Thursday's performance and reception, she can add Las Vegas to her already considerable laurels.
"Colors of the Wind" was properly placed at the 30-minute mark. Our favorite moments came when she sat on a stool for her jazz segment, a tasty touch, with " What Will I Tell My Heart ", " Alfie ", and Van Morrison's " Someone Like You " The too brief dance sequence with an unbilled partner was another standout. The program might have been more effective at 60 minutes but we would be hard pressed to suggest deletions.
The small, but mighty six-piece ensemble, plus female backup singers were just right; sound levels were where they should be and we could understand every word in each of the lyrics, even the up-tempo rompers.
Mark Pitta was smart in letting the audience come to him rather than pressing or attacking them. He did his job well.
Vanessa Williams is one female singer that I would willingly go back to see as a member of the audience.
JOE DELANEY is a SUN entertainment critic.
END
