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Ice Palace crowd gets its fair Cher
By CURTIS ROSS
TAMPA - Anyone fearing that an older Cher would be a more subdued Cher can put their fears to rest.
The single-name diva's show before a sold-out Ice Palace crowd of 15,237 was as flashy, splashy and over-the-top as any fan could have hoped.
Start with the medieval stage set. With a half-dozen costumed dancers scavorting around it, it resembled ``Camelot'' as staged by Cirque de Soleil, with choreography by Paula Abdul.
Cher's own costumes are no longer as revealing as those designer Bob Mackie dressed her in back in the '70s. But she still has plenty of them, changing numerous times throughout the approximately 90-minute set.
She began in an outfit that suggested Robin Hood as a harem girl with an explosion of red curls atop her head. Later costumes featured head-to-toe spangles, strategically torn leather and a Napoleon hat.
For anyone else, this would all be a tremendous breach of good taste and logic. For Cher, it's exactly what you would want.
Who else, with a catalog stretching back to 1965, would open with a bouncy dance version of U2's ``I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For''?
Cher followed that with a batch of dance-oriented tunes from her current hit album, ``Believe,'' although the title track was saved for later in the show.
She then reached back 10 years for ``We All Sleep Alone'' (which she has remade on the ``Believe'' album) and ``I Found Someone,'' songs that introduced Cher to the MTV generation.
Going back even further, Cher offered a medley of ``Gypsies, Tramps and Thieves,'' ``Half Breed'' and ``Dark Lady,'' campy, melodramatic '70s hits that played on her ethnic heritage.
Although she mentioned having ``35 years to press in'' to a concert set, she went no further back than the '70s and made no mention of her late ex-husband, Sonny Bono.
In fact, the once wise-cracking half of Sonny and Cher did little talking, letting video montages tell her history as TV star, movie actor and all-around icon.
Actually, it was the fans who cheered her every move, smile and costume change who attested to her status as the stuff of entertainment legend.
Cyndi Lauper preceded Cher with a 45-minute set. The last time Lauper appeared at the Ice Palace, opening for Tina Turner in 1997, she was four months pregnant. This time she took advantage of her child ``being on the outside,'' dancing up a storm, kicking up her heels, and even heading into the audience for ``Ballad of Cleo and Joe.''
