Usher Starts His London Tour, But Reactions Are Mixed

Usher opened his ten-night residency at London’s O2 Arena with a polished two-hour performance that was both amazing and annoying.

Usher opened his ten-night residency at London’s O2 Arena with a polished two-hour performance that was both amazing and annoying.

The US pop diva performed over 40 songs, including classics like “Yes,” “Burn,” “U Remind Me,” and “OMG,” while switching costumes and slickly choreographing.

A few on-stage blunders and missed musical cues were among the strangely rough parts of the production, which is returning to the UK following a 62-date run in the US.

Usher’s captivating stage presence barely kept the show together, but rambling, extended film interludes frequently destroyed the momentum.

The tour, which is titled “Past, Present, Future,” promises to provide both “a glimpse into the future” and a “intimate” look into Usher Raymond IV’s triple crown.

After a successful Super Bowl halftime show and the release of his ninth studio album, Coming Home, the musician, who is among the best-selling artists of the 2000s, is experiencing a career comeback.

With ten sold-out performances at the O2, he joins a select few who have performed there for ten or more nights, including Queen (10 in 2022), Bon Jovi (12 in 2010), and Prince (21 in 2007).

Past, Present, Future fundamentally demonstrates how adeptly the 46-year-old has handled the changing music industry trends.

We witness a video clip of him at the age of 14 dancing to his first track, Call Me A Mack, and then we see how he changes into an EDM party starter, a confessional balladeer, an elder statesman of R&B, and a teenage heartthrob.

With the molten fluidity of his idol, Michael Jackson, he dances to the center of the arena after emerging from beneath the stage in a cone of laser beams and a fog of dry ice, seemingly using his bare hands to control the lighting.

He speeds through tunes like “Coming Home,” “Hey Daddy,” and “U Make Me Wanna” while wearing a glittering raincoat and a wide-brimmed Pharrell hat. He is supported by a funky 10-piece band and a dance troupe that mimics his every move.

One constant highlight is the choreography. The ease with which Usher performs his routines makes them appear unrehearsed, but it comes at a price: last year, he injured his neck during preparation, forcing him to postpone the start of the tour.

That agony felt like a faraway memory at the O2, when he performed a perfect moonwalk, freeze-framed in a handstand, and sped around the U-shaped stage on roller skates.

He may have botched a hat once, but one of his dancers was the one who nearly lost everything when he lost his balance during a complex chair performance, sending the chair flying across the stage.

The band also made a mistake by entering the stage four bars early and failing to recognize Usher’s cue to prolong the introduction to Superstar. Not catastrophic, but out of the ordinary for this caliber of presentation.

Numerous interludes interspersed the hits, which were narrated by Celeste, a glitchy “computer driven by AI technology to help Mr Raymond tell his story”—from teen wannabe to international superstar—against a backdrop of infidelity, tabloid fame, reconciliation, and survival.

The issue was that his songs weren’t strong enough to carry the weight of that tale. With a few notable exceptions, Usher’s songs are primarily about sexual pleasures in the bedroom and pining after ladies in clubs.

As a result, the presentation was strangely disjointed, with Usher singing a song about his ex while riding a motorcycle after a heartwarming movie about his father who was always missing.

Another recurring motif was priapism. They gave cocktail cherries to the women in the audience (“oh, it’s your first time?”). During Bad Girl, Usher snuck into the camera, and a portion of the stage was transformed into a strip club, complete with pole dancers.

Usher’s career has been characterized by this kind of lighthearted raunch, but in a performance that offered a close-up view of his character, it felt out of date and superficial.

Maybe he was just trying to let us know that he secretly enjoys having sex.

The tunes, fortunately, are still relevant. Couples were singing along to three subdued storm ballads (Climas, Burn, and Confessions Part II), and three women in the vicinity used the occasion to slow dance a security guard who was wiping the floor.

Usher deserves praise for singing everything live, and his soaring falsetto hasn’t decreased despite touring for 30 years. In U Got It Bad, he held a single note for more than ten seconds.

He occasionally found it difficult to keep the audience’s interest during the slow jams. Yeah, OMG, and DJ Got Us Falling In Love, his three best-selling songs, were what really lit up the O2. The UK has always liked him in club mode.

Ironically, I Am The Party, one of those meaningless dance songs, ended up having the most impact.

“Hopefully my [music] has been something to you,” Usher remarked during the start.

Perhaps we had a nice time together and fell in love, but something led you here. Additionally, I would like to express my gratitude for the relationship.

“If I didn’t have you to cheer me on, I wouldn’t continue to do this.”

Such statements are frequently made by pop stars. On the other hand, Usher didn’t appear to be acting as he stood at the O2, sweating, recalling the father who left him, and soaking up the love from the crowd.

His pretense of being a high-rolling playboy had vanished by the encore.

As the crowd yelled the chorus to “Without You,” he instead ran around the platform, giddy with anticipation, shooting them on his phone.

If only that entertainer had arrived sooner.