Duff has learned lessons in Dignity

Hilary Duff performed for just over 7,700 fans at the Bell Centre last night, as part of a tour in support of her album Dignity. JOHN KENNEY, THE GAZETTE

JORDAN ZIVITZ,The Gazette

When Hilary Duff played the Bell Centre in January 2005, she seemed like a marketing man's defective puppet, with an off-kilter yelp and clueless stage presence. By contrast, when she unpacked songs from her recent Dignity album last night at the same venue in front of just over 7,700, she seemed - well, dignified.

It didn't take long for her to make a decent impression: After a strobe-heavy intro gave many young girls their first taste of simulated epilepsy, Duff strode out to the electro-pop beat of Play with Fire. She seemed more refined, less desperate to please than in the past, with the directionless energy of her earlier shows transferred to a quartet of dancers who won't be sweeping any choreography awards.

Composure isn't the only lesson she's learned: Her vocals throughout the 100-minute set were considerably smoother than the dog-torturing shrillness of 2005.

Three songs in, Come Clean was a case study in another valuable teaching for the teen-beat crowd: Tinker, but don't overhaul. When Britney Spears turned her prepubescent sex-me-ups into jazz-club standards on her 2004 Onyx Hotel tour, she lost the crowd. Come Clean was tweaked to bring it in line with the blurpy beats of Dignity, but wasn't a pointless revamp.

Most of Duff's banter was of the "Sing with me, insert-city-name" variety, but she's either good at feigning sincerity or living by her own platitudes. Speaking of sincerity, titling your album Dignity is pretty rich when you're stamping your name on overpriced souvenir glow sticks. But Duff is perhaps the only mall queen these days who could sing the disc's title track - a dig at her contemporaries' vacuous celebrity, accompanied by a parade of tabloids on the video screen - without sounding like a drunk pot calling a baby-dropping kettle black.

That and other new numbers sounded meatier live than on album. But the kid-pop cavalcade

following the first wardrobe change squeezed some of the most delighted squeals from the grade-school crowd. This should worry Duff: Her audience isn't growing with her - each of Duff's last two visits have seen her shed 3,000 or 4,000 fans, and last night's crowd didn't look any older than the one in 2005. The singer smiled and cooed throughout Why Not, but one imagines it may gall her to see early hits getting most of the ear-burning cheers.

While Duff's previous Gong Show level of competence wasn't missed last night, there was often a distinct void of charisma. The speed-freak traffic video accompanying The Getaway provided more action than Duff's blas presence, and giving So Yesterday a slight reggae lilt was no excuse to chill by the drum kit.

Duff came alive after changing into a glitter-ball skirt for a run dominated by Dignity material. Outside of You pointed the way forward - a solid slab of pop durable enough to hang around after all those glow sticks die out.

jzivitz@thegazette.canwest.com
© The Gazette (Montreal) 2007

JORDAN ZIVITZ and The Gazette (Montreal) are neither way related to this site.

Courtesy: The Gazette