“Britney Covers Alanis Morissette in Concert; Has Dave Coulier Broken ... - Dose.ca” plus 4 more

Britney Covers Alanis Morissette in Concert; Has Dave Coulier Broken ... - Dose.ca
Budget battle brought out into the open - Detroit Free Press
Britney Spears nails the steps, misses the mark at Palace - Detroit Free Press
Spears works her magic at Palace show - Detroit News
Spears works her magic at Palace - Detroit News

Britney Covers Alanis Morissette in Concert; Has Dave Coulier Broken ... - Dose.ca

Posted: 08 Sep 2009 09:18 AM PDT

Has Britney Spears been playing a little too much Rock Band on the tour bus?

Spears broke out the most famous (OK, only) song about Full House's Uncle Joey -- Alanis Morissette's "You Oughta Know" -- at her show in Greensboro, N.C.

Video of the performance was posted on Spears' official website this weekend. And while the clip kinda-sorta proves that Spears is still capable of doing more than lip-syncing and shaking her barely covered ass in concert, our favourite part is the audio of a fan going crazy-bananas over the cover.

Watch it below:

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Budget battle brought out into the open - Detroit Free Press

Posted: 09 Sep 2009 12:49 AM PDT

(2 of 2)

Granholm, Senate Majority Leader Mike Bishop of Rochester and House Democrats agreed not to publicly disclose details of their budget negotiations, although Republicans have called on Granholm and Democrats to reveal their proposals.

"This is a step forward for the people of Michigan to know what the governor is proposing," said Matt Marsden, spokesman for Bishop.

Marsden then drove a wedge into the discussion, saying Granholm's plan for tax hikes is bad medicine.

"We increased taxes in 2007. Clearly things did not improve," Marsden said.

In a statement, House Speaker Andy Dillon of Redford Township took a hard swipe at Granholm's release of the proposal.

"The governor should know that showboating a proposal that has no chance of passing is not a way to solve the state's fiscal crisis," he said "All parties need to put theatrics and demands aside and get back to the hard work of negotiating a budget solution."

The $150-million cut in the Department of Community Health would come largely by reducing Medicaid payments to doctors and hospitals, Emerson said.

Of the $685 million in new revenue, $546 million would go to the general fund, and $139 million to the School Aid Fund, which provides most of the money for public schools.

Granholm's plan also includes revenue increases for the 2010-11 spending year. She and lawmakers are wrangling over a 2-year budget plan, instead of the usual 1-year budget.

Granholm said the Senate cuts would result in cuts to police and fire departments.

"The Senate cuts are dangerous to Michigan," Granholm said. "The Senate has proposed eliminating the Michigan Promise scholarship. I think that's dangerous to Michigan's future."

Granholm would not trim the $4,000 college scholarship paid to most successful students.

Contact CHRIS CHRISTOFF: 517-372-8660 or cchristoff@freepress.com. Staff writer Brian McCollum contributed to this report.

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Britney Spears nails the steps, misses the mark at Palace - Detroit Free Press

Posted: 09 Sep 2009 12:20 AM PDT

At this point in Britney Spears' world tour -- half a year after she returned to great fanfare -- playing up the tragic pop star's inspirational comeback is played out. Been there, redeemed that.

During an athletic, theatrical display inside the steamy Palace of Auburn Hills, the 27-year-old pop star confirmed Tuesday night that she's firmly back in the saddle, locked into her new groove.

If only it had a heart.

It had spectacle, all right -- a dazzling, three-ring production that operated somewhere between "The Phantom of the Opera" and Cirque du Soleil, with a cue or two nicked from godmothers Madonna and Janet Jackson. Bold and strapping in her sequined leotard, Spears appeared to a piercing roar from 16,000 fans in her first Detroit-area show since 2004.

Through 100 minutes and at least nine costume changes -- along with a few on-the-fly modifications -- Spears and her talented dance troupe staged a bacchanal of visual delights: assertive ("Piece of Me"), gorgeous ("Everytime"), erotic ("Do Something"), daring ("Breathe on Me"). All was exquisitely choreographed, adorned with eye-popping props like whips and rings of fire.

But there was something empty, even vaguely disconcerting, about Tuesday night's show.

Years ago, in the earliest performances of her five-show Palace career, Spears brought bundles of pep and pizzazz, lending a girl-next-door radiance to her ever-maturing repertoire. Tuesday, she was like a spandex-clad machine, so occupied with the extravagance of the moment that she made little actual connection with her audience.

Spears showed ample flesh but little of herself: The rare smiles seemed rote, her eyes masked by sunglasses and hats. Just when you thought she might pause for breath and make a link, she was gone, disappearing down a lift through the stage to prep for the next high-flying number.

Attending a pop music concert used to serve two big purposes: absorbing a real-time music performance, and getting a real-life peek at an otherwise distant figure.

With Spears, both are rendered moot. There's not a piece of the pop star we haven't seen during the past decade, time and again and again; fittingly, her show opened with a film segment featuring Web celeb king Perez Hilton. And the music Tuesday -- marred by an abrasive mix and lazily lip-synched vocals -- seemed largely an afterthought. The mid-show twofer of "Freakshow" and "Get Naked (I Got a Plan)" was typical, her voice disembodied from the kinetic motion onstage, the band burrowed into a corner below the action.

So take away the music, the mystique and the human connection, and you're left with what amounts to a flashy and expensive celeb-watching session -- or, to be generous, a glitzy dance spectacle. By the time she stepped through her encore, amid the martial thump of "Womanizer" Spears had reaffirmed a couple of timeless truths: Style still doesn't compensate for substance. And victories, alas, don't always feel triumphant.

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Spears works her magic at Palace show - Detroit News

Posted: 08 Sep 2009 11:58 PM PDT

Adam Graham / Detroit News Pop Music Writer

For years, Britney Spears' life has been a circus. So if life gives you lemons, might as well make some lemonade, right?

Spears made some lemonade Tuesday night at The Palace of Auburn Hills during her first area concert in five years. The show unfolded in front of a healthy, but not sold-out, Palace crowd composed largely of groups of high school and college-aged girls. The concert was set up in-the-round, with the stage at the center of the arena, allowing for a capacity of more than 20,000. Had it been a normal concert configuration, it likely would have been sold-out or come very close.

Spears used the "Circus" theme -- referring to her album of that name from last year -- as a metaphor for her real-life misadventures, which need not be chronicled for the millionth time here. But it gave her an obvious concept to present her latest stage show, which employed gaggles of dancers, magicians and circus-themed stage props.

The various magic tricks and illusions weren't the only sleight-of-hand going on Tuesday. Spears herself often gave the illusion of dancing by simply nodding her head, bobbing her shoulders and waving her hands, but if you watched her feet, they weren't moving like they did in her earlier days.

Much of the concert was quite clearly lip-synced as well, and Spears often made no attempt to hide it. But few come to a Spears concert for her vocal prowess, they come to see a show, and on that front she delivered more than on any of her past tours.

Spears was at her best Tuesday when she went into full-on rocker mode, effectively pulling off a cover of Alanis Morissette's revenge classic, "You Oughta Know." Was she venting to Kevin Federline or another ex-lover, or simply singing one of her favorite songs? It was hard to tell, but maybe it didn't matter. In the end, it was just another attraction at the circus.

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Spears works her magic at Palace - Detroit News

Posted: 08 Sep 2009 10:25 PM PDT

Adam Graham / Detroit News Pop Writer

Britney Spears answered a couple of key questions during her performance at The Palace of Auburn Hills Tuesday night: Yes, she is still alive and yes, she can still pull off a high energy stage extravaganza.

A few years ago the answers to these questions were not so certain. It has been a rough couple of years for Spears, who saw her pop crown wash away in a near fatal tabloid nightmare of custody battles, divorce drama and sheared hair clippings.

But now she's back, and the pop starlet's "Circus" tour could just as well be called her rehabilitation tour. Spears' performance at The Palace Tuesday -- her first at the Pistons' home in five years -- unfolded in front of a healthy, but not sold-out, crowd of 16,000. Fans -- mostly groups of high school and college aged girls -- screamed wildly for Spears, who through her very public meltdown and subsequent comeback has managed to garner a fair amount of public sympathy in her favor.

Truthfully, all she had to do Tuesday to convince her believers was show up, and in some ways, that's all she did. Making the most of the show's "Circus" theme, Spears was constantly surrounded by distractions on stage, and was at some times flanked by as many as 16 dancers. There were magicians, scores of props, tons of costume changes -- plenty to distract from the fact that Spears, while ostensibly the star of the show, was just another cog in the machine.

She didn't sing, or at least she didn't appear to, as her vocals were mostly pumped in, a practice long utilized (and made no secret of) by Spears. And she didn't move on the dance floor the way she once did, and her moves consisted largely of her nodding her head, bobbing her shoulders and waving her hands just so, using her own sleight of hand to distract from the fact her feet were mostly staying in place.

She also very much felt like she's still being closely guarded by her handlers; outside of a curt "what's up Detroit?" halfway through the show, she didn't say much else to the crowd.

So what did she do? She acted fierce. She rocked revealing bodysuits and booty shorts, and came across plenty comfortable in her own skin. She hit her marks on stage and didn't attempt to pull off anything too grueling. And she was in control of her sexuality, and though the bondage portions of the evening sometimes turned tawdry, the show didn't deride into the pure smut that was her pre-meltdown Onyx Hotel tour.

The show -- which stuck mostly to material from Spears' last two albums, "Circus" and 2007's "Blackout" -- was a highly choreographed affair that made Justin Timberlake's last tour look like an impromptu throwdown at the local jazz club. It seemed like a throwback to earlier in the decade when pop acts were selling millions of records, and in that way left Spears' future in doubt. Yes, she proved she can still do what she once did, but what's next?

The one place she pushed herself forward was during her cover of Alanis Morrissette's revenge classic, "You Oughta Know." Wearing a pair of poured-on vinyl pants that looked like they were made out of leftover material from Batman's bat suit, a bikini top and oversize sunglasses, she took control of the song and rocked the stage. It helped that the lyrics could be applied to a number of situations in Spears' life, and she didn't make it clear if she was addressing anyone in particular or simply singing one of her favorite songs.

But in that moment, she was something more than a girl playing dress up: She was an artist expressing herself, not hiding behind tricks or distractions. Perhaps for Spears it's time to leave the circus behind and try something new on for size: Reality.

agraham@detnews.com (313) 222-2284

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