Houston struggles at Seoul show

All the hype and hoopla surrounding Whitney Houston`s first concert in Korea fell flat for fans who had eagerly expected a return to form from the singer.

The aging R&B diva, ailing from a noticeable cold, struggled to reproduce the powerful notes she became so famous for during her concert on Saturday at the Olympic Park Gymnasium in southern Seoul.

It turned out Houston`s Saturday night concert was more rehearsal for her world tour than anything else.

An estimated 11,000 turned up for the first concert of her "Nothing But Love World Tour" where she fumbled and squeaked through her set of 20 songs.

Of them, four from her latest release - including "For the Lovers," "Nothin` But Love." as well as past hits such as "Saving All My Love for You," "Greatest Love of All," and "I Will Always Love You."

The 47-year old Houston looked jetlagged and showed cracks in her physical condition after performing just the first song.



From the opening performance, instead of enjoying the relaxing night of soulful music that some had coughed up 180,000 won for, the audience had to sit and stand nervously throughout the 90-minute performance hoping their beloved Whitney could get through her set without keeling over.

And judging by the amount of perspiration she gave, the audience had good reason to be concerned for her wellbeing.

All of the talk about the deterioration of her singing voice over the past decade seemed to have been well placed.

Perhaps the cold she had been ailing from was to blame, but she was not the Whitney Houston people knew at the peak of her popularity.

Every bit of her heavy breathing echoed across the concert venue and close-ups of her face, contorted from exhaustion, could be seen on the giant screens on both sides of the stage.

Houston told the audience midway through her concert that she was not in the best of physical shape due to her cold, just before she left the stage to change costumes.

After the short intermission, Houston performed better. She was clearly trying her best to show some of the passion that had been missing in the first half of the concert.

At one point, the heel of her shoe broke after getting wedged in a crevice on stage and her performance had to be interrupted.

Through all of this, the crowd in Seoul remained upbeat without sending out the heckles that normally would have been expected.

Near the end of the concert, Houston took time to pay tribute to Michael Jackson after mentioning one of her dancers had been part of the late King of Pop`s dance troupe.

She also spoke of the tragedy in Haiti and requested a moment of silence for the victims.

Though she made a hash of her first ever concert in Korea, she should be commended for giving it her all, in spite of a cold and jetlag that she had tried to shake off by flying in to Seoul three days ahead of the concert.

Maybe the decision to come early was not the right one. The biting cold of Korea might have given her that sickness which ultimately denied her Korean fans the show of a lifetime they had so hoped for.

(kws@heraldm.com)



By Song Woong-ki