Enrique Better Than Expected, J Lo Unimpressive
by JeffinVA on 7/30/12Verizon Center - WashingtonRating: 2 out of 5My wife and I bought our tickets more to see J Lo than Enrique, but we both agree we got it backwards. Enrique did his recent hits, everything looked and sounded good. The high point for us was when he singled out a guy who was in the front row and singing along passionately and obviously knew his songs. Fortunately, that guy could actually sing (as Enrique acknowledged), and delivered on two songs unrehearsed in front of a mostly-full Verizon Center. Although he was born rich and has been famous a long time, Enrique seemed like a down-to-earth guy, and if he's not one, it's a good act. J Lo did her recent hits too, pretty much ignoring her Latin side. The comparison with Enrique pretty much ends there. She played up the "diva" side of things, being lowered on to the stage with a crane like an angel, and having dancers (mostly male) fawning over her. Everything seemed designed to hide the fact that she can't really sing very well. Her voice was chorused and had lots of other processing on it (so obvious even I could tell), and it seemed like her backup singers were carrying her even with all the processing (Yeah, Enrique had backup singers too, but his was a woman, and he's a guy). Many of her songs are duets with guys who were not there live, so they accompanied her on video. If we wanted to watch a pre-recorded video, wouldn't we just do that without buying concert tickets? In contrast to Enrique's sincerity, J Lo's between-songs chat seemed utterly generic. ("How ya doing DC!?! Everybody having a good time?!!") It all could have been pre-recorded too, honestly. One other contrast was really striking. In 2007 I saw Shakira at the same arena -- another singer famous (in the US anyway) for sexy videos and a hot body. She did a song in a T-shirt, jeans, and bare feet, accompanying herself on guitar -- no band, no video, no dancing (or dancers), no sexy costumes or light show. Everyone will have their own opinion about how she did (I thought she was pretty good), but you had to admit it was authentic, 100% her, or as J-Lo says "what you see is what you get". Except that Ms. Lopez left us with the impression she was afraid to do something like that, because we wouldn't be too impressed. On the good side, J Lo has a rockin' body, and her costumes put it all on display for us. The dance floor punch of "On the Floor" sounded great over an arena-sized sound system.
