Cher kicked off the North American portion of her world tour, Here We Go Again, with a stop in Fort Lauderdale this past Saturday

SHADE-O-METER RATING

3 OUTTA 5 WERKS: “NO SHADE, BUT SHE DIDN’T TURN IT OUT”

By Mike Jeknavorian

Who’s Cher?  If you don’t know who she is, I give up.  What’s the BB&T Center?  It’s an indoor sports an entertainment arena in Sunrise, Florida.  It’s holds about 20,000 people.  How was the venue?  State-of-the-art, for the most part.  It’s a nice space.

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How was the parking?  For some reason, our parking was included with the ticket.  If parking isn’t included with the ticket, it costs $30.  They also have “VIP parking,” which is closer to the venue than the regular parking is.  Does the venue serve liquor?  Yes. How were the drinks?  We didn’t get any (if you can believe that).

Does the venue serve food?  Yes.  How was the food?  We didn’t get any.  However, others were eating things around us.  What they were eating looked like carnival food.  Pretzels, fries, etc.   Where were the seats?  Directly to stage-right.  How much were the tickets?  $196.15, which included the Ticketmaster fees, etc.  Was the show sold out?  It sure looked like it.

Was there an opening act?  Yes.  Nile Rodgers & Chic—formerly known simply as, Chic—opened the show.  We didn’t see all of their set, but for what we did see, they were good.  The crowd was certainly into them.  And, although they were restricted to the front of the theater, they still managed to considerably jazz the crowd up.  Particularly so, with their hits, “Le Freak” and “Good Times.”

How was Cher?  Few can claim that at age 72, they’re at the height of their fame.  But with a Broadway musical about her life that’s running, a recent Kennedy Center Honor, and a star-turn in the new Momma Mia movie, Cher likely can.  But those claims will only go so far with the paying public.  To begin, Cher opened the show with her feminist anthem, “Woman’s World,” which was then followed by the disco number, “Strong Enough.”  Miss Sarkisian then delivered a semi-jumbled (despite the monitors in front of her that had captions on them) 10-to-15-minute monologue, where she discussed the premise that “youth is wasted on the young” and how her 40s were some of the best, if not the best, years of her life.  Given that the tour is supporting her new ABBA covers albums, Dancing Queen, Cher did a mid-set ABBA medley that consisted of “Waterloo,” “SOS” and “Fernando.”  But for every couple of numbers that she did, she was almost off-stage for the duration of a number, presumably, getting into another outfit.  If one subtracted all these fillers, it brought the running time down to barely an hour and a half.  The last two numbers were “I Found Someone” and “If I Could Turn Back Time.”  The one encore number was the club-heavy song, “Believe.”

How was the crowd?  A mix of the new and the ancient.  The ones on the floor stood up the whole time.  The others really only stood at the beginning and the end.  What could have improved the show?  First, has anyone that’s Cher’s age ever done a solo-arena tour with full production values?  If not, credit should be given to Cher at least for this assumed title.  The closest that I can think of who’s done anything like that in their 70s is Elton John, but he’s not really solo because he has the band behind him, and his shows don’t have the elaborate sets and costumes.  Nevertheless, with this tour, Cher brought little to the table that was novel.  A possible antidote to this deficit could be an anthological confession-type-show, similar to what Springsteen just did with Springsteen on Broadway.  And the second issue with the show was that there were some sound problems, with intermittent buzzing and loud bass sounds.

What was surprising about the show?  That whoever was the dresser would dare put one of the outfits on crooked.  And it wasn’t just any outfit, but that iconic one from the “I Found Someone” video.  The whole back of it was crooked.  Shame (enter the one who rang the bell from Game of Thrones’ “walk of shame”)!  The way that Cher ended the show was also strange.  She merely vanished at the end of the finale number without a gesture or saying a word.  And if she even waved goodbye to the crowd, we didn’t see it.    

The BB&T Center is located at 1 Panther Pkwy., in Sunrise, Florida.  The venue is open when there’s an event.