If Justin Timberlake’s patchy 2013 album The 20/20 Experience passed you by (and it certainly did me), you could be forgiven for thinking he’d become “former musical artist Justin Timberlake”, especially given his past five years dedicated to Hollywood.
The immense 20/20 Experience world tour, which stopped off on Thursday at Melbourne’s cavernous Etihad stadium, put paid to such notions. Indeed, with such an emphasis on vastness – in the volume of the bass, the size of the stage, a two-act set list, the presence of two drummers and a big band – it almost felt as though the experience was tailor-made to remind you of Timberlake’s musical prolificacy.
The set was comprised largely of hits – all of them – and a few album tracks, from 2002’s Justified to the album that shares the tour’s title.
Timberlake remains a charmingly earnest showman, so much so that occasional expletive-ridden exclamations from the now 33-year-old performer felt as embarrassing as they would had he unloaded them on the set of The All-New Mickey Mouse Club.
Beginning with the syrupy Pusher Love Girl, a 20/20 slow jam that makes me long for the glory days of Barry White’s Love Unlimited Orchestra, Timberlake’s interaction with his big band the Tennessee Kids had the ease that only a never-ending tour can bring about (this one has been going since late 2013). After a thunderous round of “Aussie, Aussie, Aussie”, Timberlake wisely tore into a pair of classics: Rock Your Body and FutureSex/LoveSound, both of which saw the set spring into a visual symphony of colour and light.
The spectacle took place on a Perspex-trimmed stage, heavy with hydraulics that allowed the band (and a white baby grand) to materialise at will, while the white honeycomb backdrop and proscenium bedecked with Hype Williams-esque digital projection occasionally gave the impression that Timberlake had commandeered the Tet spaceship from the coldly stylish Oblivion.
The first act continued in a ponderous fashion until it ended with the icy masterpiece from Justified, Cry Me a River. Accompanied by bleak projections of tornado-whipped spacescapes, it was a welcome reprieve from 20/20’s blander neo-soul.
After a brief interval, Timberlake returned – initially in disembodied CGI avatar form – with a hypnotic laser show that signalled a lift in the energy levels, crucial as by that point anyone who wasn’t huddled in general admission like a colony of emperor penguins was shivering in the freezing Etihad.
If the set list dragged somewhat, the visual element was never less than dazzling – and the spaceship mood was amped to 11 when, in an extended take of Let the Groove Get In, the Perspex section of the stage began to ascend into the arena and crowd. It made Charlie Watts’ catwalking drum riser from the Rolling Stones’ Bigger Bang tour look like a modest trickery.
Despite the spectacular, the 20/20 Experience suffers from mixed metaphor. Older hits were freshened up with unnecessary prog-leaning guitar solos and drum duets, while Timberlake’s neo-soul direction (typified by the presence of the Tennessee Kids) seemed out of place amid a light show that might have been better suited to a prime-period Chemical Brothers set.
In fact, despite the mega-selling nature of his newer work, it was 2006’s FutureSex/LoveSounds that had the most synchronicity with the light and stage show, particularly the penultimate track, SexyBack. The futurist arrangements originally laid down by producers Timbaland and Danja were wisely left largely intact (except for a bewildering decision to present the glorious What Goes Around Comes Around as an acoustic torch song).
Not only that, but the choreography that accompanied those songs – more or less unchanged since the FutureSex/LoveShow tour and videos – allowed Timberlake to remind us there was a time when he seemed to be the natural heir to Michael Jackson – a point made all the more poignant by a brief cover of Human Nature.
By the time the two hour-plus set drew to a close, we were left thinking Timberlake should ditch his Thicke-isms and bandleader aspirations and return to the comforting, cold bosom of turn-of-the-century R&B. An anniversary tour featuring either Justified or FutureSex/LoveSounds performed in full would be a dream. What goes around comes around, after all.
