Viva Las Vegas - Cher

The Coliseum is a spectacular venue and worthy of all it's hype. I wish I could say the same for Cher. I have put up with much mocking on my taste and sexuality for my brazen appreciation of her voice and style, but having been the proud hairdresser of the Cher doll with the (once) long hair (although I have struggled to understand the doll's coffee coloured skin tone...) and a considerable couture wardrobe complete with exquisite footwear and accessories, I have long harboured a deep affection for this zany creature. Her eccentricities aside, I have always loved her evocatively smoky voice (much improved by age) and along with Tina Turner, she has been one of the performers I have always wanted to watch live. Granted, it's well past her heyday, but ole Tina has a few years on her yet, and if they were to go head to head, Tina would've just annihilated Cher. Unthinkable. The show lived up to it's promise of a grand production with Cher flying in over the audience, outrageous costumes (13 changes that I can remember!) including a full Indian headdress, a show that was a cross between the Cirque de Soliel, a tribute to the Sonny and Cher era and duet that her glide in on a gondola.

All of that and more... Yet, it was sadness I felt as I left instead of the expected euphoria that one expects, that Tina demanded. Sadness for a woman who seems to be alone. One that still seems to be mourning the one man she loved, wallowing in the past instead of revelling in the woman she is today. Her opening was very Cher but then the performance was littered with image montages of the Sonny and Cher show, including a number of duets and sketches and film moments that were hers. While her voice can still raise the hair on my arms, her routine was just that, routine. No passion, no high octane energy and tragically no Oooomph. I had expected so much more. I remember, perhaps unfairly, how Tina just whipped the crowd into a frenzy with a few sultry drawls before belting out her numbers, and here was Cher, resplendent in her sequins and feathers, there, but oddly, not present. Yet, I remember her vibrancy and potency with the crowd, watching a recorded show of one of her earlier concerts in Vegas. Ike is history. Sonny was disconcertingly in the Coliseum with us. He's certainly still with her, weighing her down. Or maybe it's just what being the other side of sixty and alone can do to you.