St. Louis Post-Dispatch from St. Louis, Missouri • C02

C2 ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH 2 SUNDAY 05.06.2018 ON OUR RADAR AMY BERTRAND Features editor 314-340-8284 GABE HARTWIG editor 314-340-8353 JANE HENDERSON book editor 314-340-8107 DONNA BISCHOFF advertising dbischo 314-340-8529 GET YOUR EVENT LISTED events.stltoday.com stltoday.com/pr TICKET TRACKER Find more concert announcements. stltoday.com/blender NEW ON DVD GET MORE AT STLTODAY.COM/GO NEW IN THEATERS MOVIES Coming Tuesday Not Yet Shades Coming May 15 TELEVISION Coming Tuesday Series Season White Season Season Season 4 THE AMBASSADOR metrotix.com Alexander Sunday, canceled, refunds at point of purchase. CHESTERFIELD AMPHITHEATER ticketmaster.com Big Head Todd and the Monsters, Los Lobos, Greyhounds 6:30 p.m. Aug.

12, Randy Rogers Band, Casey Donahew 7 p.m. Aug. 24, DELMAR HALL ticketmaster.com The Cadillac Three 8 p.m. June 7, Bad, The Ultimate Michael Jackson Tribute Band 8 p.m. July 5, Theory of a Deadman 8 p.m.

July 25, Cafe Niu Tour 2018 with Ruen Brothers 8 p.m. Oct. 6, DUCK ROOM AT BLUEBERRY HILL ticketmaster.com Kim Richey 8 p.m. Aug. 3, River Whyless 8 p.m.

Aug. 22, $15. HOLLYWOOD CASINO AMPHITHEATER livenation.com and with El Monstero, Here Come the Mummies 7 p.m. Aug. 11, House Party with Vanilla Ice, Naughty By Nature, Coolio, Tone Loc, Montell Jordan, Rob Base, All-4-One and Young MC 6:30 p.m.

Sept. 8, with $10 lawn tickets the rst week of sales, on sale at 10 a.m. Monday. OFF BROADWAY etix.com Open Highway Music Festival with Old 8 p.m. Aug.

2, Screaming Females, Kitten Forever 8 p.m. Sept. 30, OLD ROCK HOUSE metrotix.com Miles Nielsen the Rusted Hearts 8 p.m. July 7, $10. SIMO 8 p.m.

July 15, $12. THE PAGEANT ticketmaster.com Monica postponed to Aug. 18, tickets for the May 13 show may be used. Bullet For My Valentine 7:30 p.m. Sept.

18, PEABODY OPERA HOUSE ticketmaster.com Carol Evening of Laughter and 7:30 p.m. Nov. 8, THE READY ROOM y.com PJ Morton, Tish Haynes Keys 6:30 p.m. June 24, RYSE NIGHTCLUB ticketmaster.com DJ Pauly 9 p.m. July 28, sold out.

SCOTTRADE CENTER ticketmaster.com Bonnie Raitt is no longer on the bill for James Taylor May 21 show. SHELDON CONCERT HALL ART GALLERIES metrotix.com Melissa Etheridge 8 p.m. June 28, OUR FAVORITE THINGS Great food, performers venues and more all in the 2018 edition of Go! List. stltoday.com/thegolist BLADES OF GLORY Look sharp: Ax-throwing venues er an edgy new alternative to darts. stltoday.com/go THEATRICAL MILESTONE In a new millennium, the Muny tried new things onstage and in the air.

stltoday.com/muny100 Mon 1:47 Michel Hazanavicius directed this comedy- drama about an episode in the life of lmmaker Jean-Luc Godard. In French with subtitles. (Boston Herald) PG-13 1:52 A debauched Mexican billionaire falls his yacht, wakes with amnesia and is convinced by the woman who cleans his boat that her working-class husband in this reboot of the 1987 Goldie Hawn- Kurt Russell comedy. With Eugenio Derbez as the Russell character and Anna Faris in role. Not reviewed (Los Angeles Times) 1:53 Warwick Thornton directed this crime drama set in the Australian Outback.

With Sam Neill and Bryan Brown. (Washington Post) 1:36 Charlize Theron is in this comedy-drama about a frazzled mom who gets much-needed help from a night nanny (Mackenzie Davis). Directed by Jason Reitman In the (Calvin Wilson) Charlize Theron in BY SONIA RAO Washington Post Christina Aguilera sat in a swivel chair alongside fellow judges Cee Lo Green, Adam Levine and Blake Shelton when premiered in April 2011. Though the concept of a televised singing competition was nothing new at that point, had already been on Fox for almost nine years the NBC series immediately hooked viewers with its dramatic blind auditions and battle rounds. All four judges came to the show as established names, but now those names regularly made for water cooler conversation.

It sounds like a great gig, right? Aguilera would say otherwise. In a Billboard interview published Thursday, the singer referred to the show as a hamster It was an she said, and she spent her six seasons as a judge for She scrunched up her face when asked whether she would ever return, adding that she would prefer to discuss career had hit something of a plateau in 2010 by pop superstar standards, anyway. The electronic- tinged her sixth album overall, met with mixed reviews that summer. While her vocals remained strong, some listeners wondered whether she felt a need to imitate Lady Gaga. A planned Bionic Tour never came to be, as she felt she have enough time to plan a satisfactory show between promoting the album and a critically panned movie musical that also starred Cher.

Then, in February 2011, Aguilera flubbed the lyrics to the national anthem while singing at the Super Bowl. A week later, she almost fell onstage at the Grammys while performing a tribute to Aretha Franklin. That March, she was detained for public intoxication. The singer needed a career boost, and seemed like the answer. But that changed.

Aguilera told Billboard that the show soon strayed from what she signed up for in the first season. realize not about she said. about making good TV moments and massaging a story. I get into this business to be a television show host and to be given all these (rules). Especially as a female: You wear this, say that.

I would find myself on that show desperately trying to express myself through clothing or makeup or hair. It was my only kind of (The Washington Post approached NBC for comment.) Aguilera alone in her criticism of Fellow judge Levine has been known to speak up about its failings, particularly in reference to how the record deals always help their careers. He said as much in a 2015 interview with Howard Stern: the baton is passed some problems. People take over after we do this great job of building these people up on the show. some real issues He quickly clarified that he blamed the record labels, not NBC or the winners.

show ends, and like, they matter to me Levine said of how record labels treat the singers. is how they feel on the other end. I understand why they care. what drives me absolutely bonkers. And then it makes me feel defeated on my end, because really not much I can With all this in mind, fitting that Aguilera named her upcoming album Her first since commercially unsuccessful the album leans toward and hip-hop.

The singer seems poised for yet another comeback, one that will include her first tour in years. revived career, but she longed to move on BY KEVIN C. JOHNSON St. Louis Post-Dispatch U2 nally made it back to St. Louis on Friday night for a much welcomed show seven months after the crushing cancellation of Joshua Tree Tour tour stop in St.

Louis. Scheduled at the Dome at the Center in September, the show possibly would have been the biggest of 2017 before it was pulled. Friday, it was the Innocence Tour at Scottrade Center in only its second tour date after opening May 2 in Tulsa, Okla. And though U2 had nothing to make up for as it relates to St. Louis, the return to the city, as soon as it was and so early in the new run, felt nearly deliberate though it surely The Innocence is the companion piece to Experience which also failed to play St.

Louis, meaning the new tour was essentially the second part of a double feature with the rst part missing. It matter much as which comes on the heels of the late 2017 album of holds its own. At one point, frontman Bono even asked who needs innocence when you have experience. For over two hours of the spectacularly sprawling show, the Bono (the real Greatest Showman), the Edge (guitar), Adam Clayton (bass) and Larry Mullen Jr. (drums) delivered music with a message, something the Irish act has always done, with none of its social and political consciousness diminished.

Before the show even started, a plethora of messages on Earth do women have as many opportunities as peace a of us are equal until all of us are were displayed on screen. Many of the messages would play out later during new song Out of Your Own You know going into a U2 concert that the Irishmen want to make America and its homeland great again, only under their nition. Footage of neo-Nazis was shown during at the a song Bono said was about stubbornness and political blindness, while footage from women and minority marches accompanied (In the Name of Love), which closed with a photo of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

The band, this deep into its career, is still delivering unmatched extravaganzas that set the bar for what a concert experience can be. (This tour came with a concert app designed for the show, but why watch all this through your phone?) During the thrill ride, U2 mixed new of songs such as is All We Have of (the rst three songs) with older songs such as Bloody and even rare oldie from a super treat for fans (Bono talked into some sort of face lter thing that made his face devilish just before the song). Noticeably absent from the show were any songs from Joshua reasonable to assume after touring for ve months on a trek dedicated mostly to that album there was no need to revisit it on the current tour. But it have been an amazing if U2 had, just for St. Louis, thrown the city one branch in acknowledgement of what the city missed out on last year? Bono mention the cancellation, though it would have been another nice touch if he had acknowledged it.

The tour is marked by its innovative stage design by Es Devlin, on full display from the top of the show. The centerpiece of the design is a dazzling video wall a wide, two-sided panel that ran down the center of the arena oor complete with a mobile walkway leading to a small satellite stage. The video wall allowed for incredible set pieces augmented by sensational animation, imagery and live footage including a bit in which Bono hovered over the arena oor like an apparition during the End of the Despite the big moments, and there were many, the small ones carried just as much punch. The band huddled near each other on the satellite stage, with Bono in stark white makeup, for songs including and Cylinder light xtures, which resembled scaled- down versions of those on Red Hot Chili last tour, blanketed the stage during of Blinding The band gave a nod to Kendrick Lamar, seen via animation, on featuring an American ag backdrop. At the top of the encore, Bono suggested the only way to solve a problem is to reach out to those you normally want to sit across, agree to disagree, then nd the one thing important enough to agree on.

Those words led to and is Bigger Than Anything in Its before Bono had some quiet time during nal song (There is a sending a large light bulb swinging through the air before he quietly walked stage. Kevin C. Johnson 314-340-8191 Pop music critic on Twitter U2 delivers unmatched extravaganza during concert at Scottrade Center PHOTO BY JON GITCHOFF U2 performs Friday night at Scottrade Center in St. Louis. CONCERT REVIEW.