Concert date: 7/29/99 Los Angeles, CA

Review of the show:
Ever since I heard "You Give Good Love" on the radio 14 years ago, I have been entranced with Ms. Houston. I have followed her career and have attended many of her concerts, seen her TV appearances, watched her movies, etc. etc. etc. There was no doubt that God blessed Whitney with the best voice on the planet. Over the past several years however, it has been somewhat disheartening to see how Whitney's golden voice has lost a little of its luster. Whether its been due to age, vocal abuse, smoking, or actual health reasons, its been sad to see her voice digress. Those high notes aren't as frequent and her voice cracks when she does try and hit them. Where she has improved is in that mid-range, alto voice...there's no other word than POWER. But I would be lying if I said that I didn't miss that sweet, silky soprano voice of her first two albums. So when she announced that she was going on tour, I wondered what would happen.

I have been more than pleasantly surprised to hear and read about all these wonderful reviews that her current tour is getting...."She's hitting all those high notes again!" or "Her voice is back!" But then she started cancelling some dates, citing voice problems as the reason. I just knew all these great reviews were too good to be true. I just "knew" that she was going to cancel her July 29 concert at the Universal Amphitheatre in Los Angeles. She's performing the following evening at the same venue as a fundraiser for the Magic Johnson Foundation, so I thought that she would cancel the previous evening's concert in an attempt to "save" her voice. WAS I EVER WRONG.

This concert was a marvel to behold. I'm not one of those fans who loves an artist so much that I become blind to their deficiencies, so I'm not going to say that she was sounding like an angel if in fact she sounded like Barry White. Knowing that she had just cancelled two dates less than week before, and knowing that reviews of her Denver concert just two days earlier weren't that great, I wasn't expecting much. That's when she knocked my wife and I off of our seats.

Here was her set list (which you should all know by memory): "Get It Back", "Heartbreak Hotel", "If I Told You That", "You Give Good Love", "Saving All My Love For You", "Until You Come Back", "Oh Yes", "Exhale (Shoop Shoop)", and "I Learned From The Best". After her brother sang "Change The World", she came back and sang "I'm Every Woman", "I Wanna Dance With Somebody (remix)", "How Will I Know", "In My Business", "I Love The Lord", "I Go To The Rock", "My Love Is Your Love", "I Believe In You and Me / Why Does It Hurt So Bad / It Hurts Like Hell", and "I Will Always Love You." Her encore was "It's Not Right But It's Okay".

Here are the highlights and my impressions of the show:

•The audience went CRAZY when she entered the stage with "Get It Back". About 80% of the audience immediately jumped on their feet. It was clear right off the bat the Whitney's voice was ON.

•"You Give Good Love" was great in that it brought us all back to 1985, and with her now-alto voice, it had a sexier sound to it. And yes, when she seg-wayed into "Saving All My Love For You," I was wondering if she was going to hit those high notes at the end. She not only hit them, but with POWER. At the beginning of the song, Whitney noticed a lady in the very front row was on her cell phone. She stopped and asked her "Who are you talking to?" The lady said she was talking to her kids, then the lady held up her phone to Whitney as she sang lyrics something like "Hello babies, I wish you were here." Only Whitney could make those words sound sexy. Whitney got a big kick out of the whole thing.

•"Until You Come Back" was done about 100x better than when she performed this year at the AMA's. This was such a wonderfully STRONG performance, and it had a classy feel to it, like she was in a small smoky blues bar.

•Whitney asked "Are you ready to get sexy?" Of course we were. She started by saying that this song was her answer to the question "How does Bobby make you feel?" Bobby actually spent the entire concert on the side of the stage where you could see him "hiding". He was moving and dancing there the entire night by himself. He was into his wife's concert.

•She did "Who Can Shoop The Best?" contest when she sang "Exhale". Our section was the first section to perform, and we SUCKED. We even got booed! Whitney said that we didn't have the "Shoop Angels" with us that night. The final section was SO loud, even Whitney had to raise the roof for them. Then Whitney called Monica to the stage. She said that the two of them had finalized some deal for ABC and Disney, but she couldn't say anymore, just that we would see Monica on TV very soon. Then they started "shooping" to eachother, and it ended in a huge hug. It was really a cute performance. You could tell that they REALLY loved eachother.

•After her costume change, she came out and sang "I'm Every Woman". From this moment on, the audience was constantly on their feet. I thought the crowd had energy since the beginning, but from this point on it was ELECTRIC. She sang this song better than I've ever heard, on TV or in concert. That ain't no lie, either.

•Bobby came out and danced with a little bit with Whitney on "I Wanna Dance". I liked the latin-flavored remix. Speaking of Bobby, I don't remember which song it was, but there was a song during which he was taking pictures of Whitney from the side of the stage, and then he came out at the end of the song and took a close picture of her butt, which she gladly stuck out for him. It was really funny.

•Whitney sang "In My Business" which was surprisingly VERY good. The song isn't what I necessarily consider a Whitney song, but she made it her own, much better than on the album. After she sang it, she asked if Missy Elliott was in the audience. She told Whitney that she was going to go, but she didn't. Whitney said that she wasn't going to sing the song, but she added it because Missy was going to be there. She pretended that she was ticked off, then she asked that lady in the front row if she could borrow her cell phone because she needed to "make a call" to Ms. Elliott. It was really funny.

•"I Love The Lord" was SO powerful. Whitney totally lost herself in this song, and the audience loved it as well. But the power erupted when she sang "I Go To The Rock". EVERYONE was clapping and raising the roof. Asking the band to bring it down, she then introduced her band. She said something about it being her new band. She didn't mention Rickey Minor by name, but when she was going to introduce her new musical director, she said something like "It's difficult when you work with a band for over 10 years and then you have a new one. You become married to each other and love each other. But he (Rickey) is moving on to bigger and better things and I'm happy for that." I have always wondered what happened with that. They were together for the Divas Live performance, but then a month later they are gone.

•After the band was introduced, Whitney pointed out that Clive Davis was in the audience, and he got up and waved at everyone. She laughed and said, "He don't just come to concerts. If he don't like you, he ain't coming!" Sitting next to Clive was Babyface, and he got up and waved at everyone. She told the story of how she was offered the song "Exhale" and thought Babyface had lost his ability to write words. Everyword was "shoop shoop shoop", but Babyface said, "Just sing it, girl. They will get it." Then she pointed out David Foster sitting next to them as well. I really love David Foster, so this was a highlight for me. His wife, Linda Thompson, was sitting next to him. Neither of them got up and waved....Whitney just pointed to them and waved and said "I love you."

•The lowlight of the show came during this time. At the side of the left side of the stage (in the front row) was this gay couple. They were really into the concert the whole time and were dancing. At first I thought they were really funny and hilarious.... they were just SO into the concert and into Whitney. But as the evening went on, they started getting irritating. It just seemed like they WANTED to make a spectacle of themselves. Sitting a few seats over from them were these 3 cute young kids from the south central Los Angeles, and Whitney went over to talk to them, but these two guys started yelling at Whitney and talking really loud and Whitney couldn't hear what the 3 kids were telling her. Finally, she looked over at them and said, "I'm not talking to you, I'm talking to these kids." She tried again to talk to the kids, telling them that they could do anything in life if they kept their heads on straight, etc. However, these two guys kept talking and being loud, and finally Whitney said, "You need to SIT DOWN. Sit down now. Sit down and I'll get to you in a minute." She wasn't rude, just to the point. People around them applauded at this... they were really getting to be irritating. When Whitney finally got to them, and as the spotlight was on the two guys, instead of talking to Whitney, they started tonguing eachother. Whitney just turned around and sang "Oh Jesus" really loud and long. Then I heard someone sitting behind those guys yell out "Hey guys, shut the hell up" really loud. These guys, who were on their feet the whole evening, did sit down, and about 2 minutes later they were gone. I'm not sure if they were asked to leave by security or if they were just embarrased and left because they knew that they were irritating everyone.

•During "My Love Is Your Love", Bobbi Kris came running out. I've read how everyone says she never smiles and is always serious, albeit very polite. I've noticed that as well, but those who were there at the concert can confirm that Bobbi was smiling the ENTIRE time on stage. Maybe it's because she's been on the tour all summer and she's more comfortable. I don't know, but she was really cute and adorable. My wife fell in love with her. Her and Whitney danced the whole entire song with this really cute choreographed little dance. This was my favorite part of the concert. Then Bobby came on stage and Bobbi run to him. You could tell that she REALLY loves her dad. Whitney went to her and asked her to do her rap. Bobbi said, "My name is Bobbi Kris, and I'm hear to say, "Clap your hands"! It was so hilarious. The girl has rhythm. She would rap to the beat of the song. She just kept doing that little rap over and over, then she ended with this little bow. She had the whole audience in the palm of her hand. By the way, Whitney started doing the album version of this song, but the went into the remix version. I didn't really like it that much. Maybe it just has to grow on me, but it wasn't my favorite.

•This is no lie... I have NEVER heard Whitney sing "I Will Always Love You" as good as she did at this concert. Never. No cracking at all WHATSOEVER. This song had so much power. When she threw down that towel and belted out "...And I....." everyone just spontaneously jumped to their feet and went CRAZY! She sang it more passionately and with more power than is on the album. This song was by far her strongest of the evening. Her vocals were impeccable. She could NOT have done this song any better. I can't say enough. People might be thinking, "Yeah right! There is NO way that she could have sung this song as well as you are saying." Let me just say that you are right... she sang it better. Those who were there can confirm what I'm saying.

•The encore was "It's Not Right..." and the performance was okay. I don't think this is a really good song to end the concert with though. It's a great dance song, but it lacks the energy of "I'm Every Woman" or "Step by Step" or something similar. I love this song a lot, but it doesn't really fit as a final song.

•For those of you who like fashion reports, I'm not one who is good at that. She changed twice. She came out with some really long sequined coat that was like hot pink, but it looked like Edward Scissorhands got to it. It was cut up like 5 times up the back. I don't know how else to explain it. She wore some hot pink 4 inch heels... now I'm a pump man (and a leg man) and I loved that part. She wore these 3/4 lenghth aqua-colored pants with some sort of design on them. The outfit was okay. The second thing she was wore was a gown. It's like a long sheer dress with a long train that she holds in her hand. It's like a glittery silver color and has painted flowers on it. She had like a fur thing on her shoulders that was lime green. Her pumps were lime green with hot pink heels. I loved this dress. It is tight and shows off her figure so wonderfully. This girl is FINE! How she moves and dances in this dress I don't know. For the encore, all she did was changed that fur thing, exchanging it for a hot pink one.

•The concert was a sell out (6,500), and the following evening's concert sold out a couple of weeks ago. The place was packed. People were really into this concert. My wife and I were laughing because there was this lady who must have been about 70, and she was near the front dancing her butt off and RAISING THE ROOF! All I could say was "You go girl!" She was really funny and to those who think the older crowd can't get into Whitney's new stuff, well, here's evidence that they can.

•My wife and I got our tickets through the Platinum Club, and our tickets were "Section: Orchestra 5, Row: AA, Seats: 1 and 2." For those of you who don't believe it, you don't have a lot of faith in Whitney's fan club. They REALLY came through. I just couldn't believe it. When I ordered the tickets, all they could guarantee was that the tickets would be in the first 1/3rd of the venue. Well, Row AA is much more than just the first third! For those of you who aren't members of the fan club, join up. It really does work.

•Whitney entered the stage at 9:20 pm, and finished at 11:35pm. She said something about going over the time curfew, but she just kept on singing.

To all of you who had their concerts cancelled on them or for those of you who got her when her voice was "ill", I am really sorry. I really feel for you. All 6,500 of those who attended this concert got a Whitney that we haven't seen, EVER. I don't know what kind of medicine the Lord put in her hands that day, but her voice was p.e.r.f.e.c.t. I honestly had thought Whitney's best days were behind her, but I was proven so wrong. Sure, she's not the soprano she once was, but that doesn't mean that her voice isn't as good. It's just more of an alto and a lot more powerful. Don't give up on her, fans. She has proven that Whitney's voice is still the best one on the planet. I hope you'll get the chance to witness it for yourselves.

Now that's what I call a detailed review! Everyone take note! THANK YOU , RALPH!