On the opening night of her first UK tour in 13 years, Mariah Carey is putting a brave face on things. Not one but two of her personal on-stage throat-relieving sprays are defective. To make matters worse, someone has also forgotten to switch on the fans that invisibly caress her impressive blonde hair. “Turn them up, don’t be stingy,” she says. Then, addressing the adoring crowd, the 45-year-old adopts a tone of mock-horror: “When have you ever seen me without my fans?”
If there was a time when band, production crew and even the audience might have walked on eggshells around Carey, they seem to – mostly – be behind her, even if she does start 20 minutes later than advertised. Carey has shifted albums in staggering amounts during a 25-year-plus career – over 220m records to date – but after soft sales for her oddly-named 2014 album Me. I am Mariah… the Elusive Chanteuse and a 2015 repackaged greatest hits, her imperial phase is behind her.
Since last May, she’s been in residency in Las Vegas, a projected two-year fixture that will resume in June after this 25-date jaunt around Europe and South Africa. Unlike her Caesar’s Palace revue, rigidly structured around the conceit of performing 18 number one hits in chronological order, The Sweet, Sweet Fantasy Tour offers more flexibility, allowing Carey to hopscotch around her discography, from re-edits of her early honeyed love songs to an extended foray into the hip-hop influenced years, including potent blasts of Loverboy and Heartbreaker. She also reintroduces Shake It Off, her 2005 hit, perhaps to remind people there was pop before Taylor Swift.
The 90-minute show feels scaled back from her Vegas pomp, if touring with a five-piece band, three backing singers, six dancers, four spectacularly bling costume changes and taking the stage while being carried on a chaise lounge like Cleopatra can be described as downsized. The vibe of cabaret intimacy seems to suit Carey’s waspish patter, though. She totters. She vamps. And after wrapping herself round a wobbly old-timey microphone, she entertainingly throws some shade. “I used to use a sparkly microphone … but then I stopped because everyone else started doing it.”
At times, the staging is eccentric. At one point, her dancers dress like Top Gear Stigs, waving chequered flags in MC-branded jumpsuits and crash helmets. One young male fan plucked from the crowd gets a suggestive but relatively chaste lapdance during Touch My Body. It’s all a little cheesy. But even the ascendent Adele, currently on her own live victory lap around the world’s biggest arenas, doesn’t have access to Carey’s bulletproof war chest of blue-chip ballads. Against All Odds – her Phil Collins “remake”, as she calls it – sounds much better without Westlife. For the 1999 Oscar-winner When You Believe, Carey duets with a video of Whitney Houston. She convincingly belts out Hero and We Belong Together against a backdrop that shimmers like a giant chandelier.
Overall, it feels like a well-tailored package, sympathetically conceived to showcase a once-unbeatable star in a respectful rather than completely fawning light. “I’m just doing the best I can with what I’ve got,” she says knowingly at one point. Beyoncé may be Queen B, but judging by the audience cheers during her thumping Without You finale, Mimi will forever be pop royalty.
- At Leeds Arena 17 March. Box office: 0844-248 1585. At Manchester Arena 18 March. Box office: 0844-847 8000. Then touring.
