Cher Works on So Many Levels

Sometimes, you just have to go see Cher on her farewell tour at the Hollywood Bowl. If for no other reason than to make your husband happy.

And your gay Armenian couple friends are great company for the night. Did you know Cher is Armenian?

So, no reason to go into her whole concert. You can rent the DVD of her tour and see for yourself. It's a total circus. Complete with acrobatic performers and a fake elephant and Cher changing her costume and wig after almost every song, and entering each song from some new chandelier or staircase. With major video and great psychedelic graphics. This was not Chuck Mangione at Chatauqua in 1978.

The thing about Cher is, even though her songs are awful and her vampy burlesque is ancient network news, and she’s a diva bitch just like the ones she invites to follow her, you can tell that Cher is absolutely smart and hilarious and even though she truly enjoys jumping around up there making a spectacle of herself (and why not?), she also understands that the whole thing is completely ridiculous. It’s self referential, stays within the bounds of its gaudy world and invites us all to be stupid and sparkly.

She works it like a super carnival pro, and you have to give her a big hand for what she does. However, all night long I was mostly interested in the unseen backstage person who flops on Cher’s new wig with each costume change...the last and proudest person in the row of proud dressers, crowning that silly self-imitating drag queen with some fright wig and then scooting her out to hit the crowd singing another tacky song.

After the show exhausted all hair colors and hair materials, the finale's fireworks display spelled out, in fireworks, "Follow This You Bitches." It was so over the top, you kind of had to let out a big this-is-ridiculous howl.

She was warmed up by The Village People. And like being at a Nazi youth meeting, when they performed Y.M.C.A. as the encore, if you looked behind you, you could see the entire Hollywood Bowl, standing up, doing the moves. It shudders the spine.

I don't get this whole shiny gay thing. But at least it isn't mean spirited and the whole romp does poke fun at its own vanity while at the same time making grown, gay, Armenian men cry.





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