At The Point, Dublin

The posters on the side of buses throughout town had been proclaiming that this was Anastacia ‘live at last’. Even though she has admirably waited until her second album before venturing out to meet her public, it’s hard to imagine that many have been counting off the days and months on their calendars. Maybe that’s just musical snobbery though, because the Point is absolutely stuffed. For all our concerns with the underground and the credible and cutting edge, this is very probably the real face of music in the twenty first century – mass marketed, mass appeal and tied in with a mobile phone company. Accept that and there’s a fair bit of fun to be had. The best bit is Anastacia herself. She’s an engaging presence, able to interact with eight thousand people in a relaxed and natural manner and while her voice may not be to everyone’s tastes (to put it mildly) there’s no arguing that this is one singer who doesn’t need any help from backing tracks.
For all the modern slant, there’s something quite traditional about her, a performer in the old belt ‘em out style. Her show too wavers between styles, avoiding the glitzy overkill of some yet still required to pull out a few old tricks to fill the two hours – video interludes, fans onstage singing with the star, an acoustic set mid venue and costume changes that see her come back out in a different pair of jeans. The gaps appear in the form of her material which, singles apart (‘Left Outside Alone’ is huge), is pretty much forgettable but it’s a quibble that seems to bother few here and, without wishing to commit the heinous journalistic crime of sitting on the fence, maybe that is all we really need to think about.