SameSame.com.au ~ Inside Out Australia

Live - Justin Timberlake - Acer Arena, 31/10/07

Reviews, By stuartg, 5th November, 2007

I can’t quite remember the exact moment when Justin Timberlake suddenly found himself with ‘cred’. He certainly didn’t have any – at least in my mind – during the shameless pop years of ‘N Sync. I suspect it was somewhere between performing, un-credited, on the Black Eyed Peas single Where Is The Love and the infamous wardrobe malfunction incident of the 2004 Super Bowl that this honour was bestowed upon him – an event that evidently did more for Justin’s career than Janet Jackson’s.

However it happened, Justin Timberlake, currently touring with his FutureSex/LoveShow Tour is now a force to be reckoned with. Regardless of what you make of his singing history, his well documented prima-donna behaviour or his alleged “I can’t believe they let you reproduce” comments in Brisbane earlier in the tour, somehow seeing the energy with which JT performs makes the rest pale into insignificance.

When FutureSex/LoveShow hit Sydney’s Acer Arena I dutifully attended with a friend of mine, a somewhat more ‘practicing’ JT aficionado than I. The stage had a catwalk which was thrust out into the audience, with an intricate semi-sheer circular curtain in the centre. Over the course of the performance not only would we see this circular curtain rise and fall according to the mood of each song, but it also acted as a huge screen upon which a raft of visually spectacular moving images were projected. The highlight of which was a moment at the end of Chop Me Up when a gospel choir was projected onto this descended curtain which, at that point, was running the entire length of the Arena.

But while the technical wizardry of this performance was undoubtedly spectacular, it was really JT and his well known hits that we were all there to experience, and in that respect the show didn’t disappoint. They were all there – from the obligatory opening track from Future Sex/Love Sounds to a very unique but mesmerising version of My Love, from a version of What Goes Around performed on a rotating upright piano to a version of SexyBack which, combined with the vibe in the arena, felt like being in the most pumped-up nightclub on earth.

There can be no doubt that this show was one for the fans as well as those who, like me, don’t mind dipping their toe in the JT pond occasionally.

Still, after seeing a performance like this you can’t help but be struck with how much of a performer JT is, in the true sense of the word. Some of his performances that night appeared almost as tributes to Michael Jackson or Prince.

Whatever you took away from the show, be it the exhilaration of seeing an idol or simply a night’s worth of solid entertainment, you would have trouble finding someone within the almost 20,000 strong crowd who wasn’t dazzled that night by his amazing ability to entertain.