Pricey tickets worth it for pop princess

WEEKS before Britney Spears landed in Singapore, much of the fuss was about the exorbitant ticket prices to catch the American pop icon's first full-length concert here.

The bulk of the tickets at the Indoor Stadium in Kallang cost either S$568 or S$468. Even the cheapest seats in the arena, with a restricted view no less, were going for a princely sum of S$188 each.

As it turns out, those sky-high prices didn't deter more than 7,800 people from shelling out a pretty penny to breathe the same air as the former Disney Mouseketeer and sing along to her infectious tunes.

And sing along they did, as the 35-year-old Louisiana native belted out 20 songs during an electrifying 90-minute show on June 30 that featured numerous costume changes, each showing off her stunning curves.

The crowd sang their hearts out, but did Spears? Well, she could never really escape from all the criticism about her notorious lip-syncing - there were a fair number of songs where she was clearly not singing every word.

An unexpected pause midway through the concert produced arguably the most memorable moment. As that date coincided with the birthday of one of her bodyguards, Jacob, Spears serenaded him with a stirring a capella rendition of Happy Birthday.

In that half-minute or so, she blew the audience away with her range of vocals, as if to send out a firm reminder to her detractors that she can, indeed, sing "live".

Regardless, there were plenty of highlights in the show, which consisted of eight acts where Spears belted out hits including the fast-paced Womanizer, ...Baby One More Time (the song that launched her to fame in 1999), Piece of Me, and I'm a Slave 4 U.

Those in the stadium lapped it all up from start to finish, as the starlet moved seamlessly from one song to another, one costume to another, from one end of the giant stage to the other. The extravagant sets also upped the wow factor considerably.

Adding to the carnival atmosphere were the fans who dressed up for the occasion in outfits that Spears has made famous over the years.

One turned up as a Catholic schoolgirl with two ponytails a la Spears in ...Baby One MoreTime, another was spotted dancing away in the flight attendant costume that the singer donned in the music video for Toxic.

Just when the fun seemed to be starting, Spears played party-pooper by bringing her show to a close with an encore of Till The World Ends and a colourful confetti shower. It was barely 9.45pm, but a sweaty and slightly breathless Spears was more than ready to call it a night.

So was her debut concert worth the price of admission? Someone outside the stadium was overheard telling a friend that he paid roughly S$28.50 to hear each of the 20 songs (or S$27 if you added that impromptu Happy Birthday to the list).

Whether you felt a tad shortchanged or not, Spears showed that, even after nearly two decades in the music business, she still more than lives up to her reputation as her generation's undisputed "Princess of Pop".