Good? yeah. At the same venue, Usher was better than BEP, Madonna, Rihanna, even MJ himself back in 2001.
But… not great.
At one point, Usher performs an MJ tribute and asks if he can set into the King Of Pop’s shoes before doing so and segueing into one of Usher’s greatest songs, “You Make Me Wanna”. But the answer is, as a dancer, Usher is close, but as a sing, as a songwriter, as a performer… nah, he really can’t.
The two hour set was a series of tableaux, starting with Usher descending from the ceiling on a platform and continuing through switches of outfits every couple of songs. The changes aren’t long but they are a little disruptive and the set pieces are cute without being particularly surprising.
“U Remind Me” -a story of sweet talking nothings is a Tyler Perryish self parody, a longish snooze of “Trading Places” the same old crappy audience participation,
Still, there are places where the music and the dancing come together as one: “Love In The Club”, “Bad Girl”, “DJ Got Us Falling In Love” followed by “Hot Tottie”. Usher brings out King regent Justin Bieber for “Confessions” and with eight dancers behind them they ignite the Arena. The finale “OMG” is a great dance track and energetic as all get.
Indeed, it does all go back to the dancing which is shockingly good. Usher has all of MJ’s move, he can spin in place, he can aerobicize, and he can glide, and dancing is so important he introduces his dancers and not his band.
This is very , very good Arena pop music. It is both intimidate and huge at the same time. The music could be better but it was a fun evening.