Pop

Mariah Carey Wembley Arena

SHE made a grand entrance from behind the 12,000-strong audience in the auditorium, passing like royalty through a gap cleared by a phalanx of security guards to either side of her. Once on stage she was joined by musicians, backing singers, a rag-tag troupe of dancers who looked like circus entertainers, and a "butler " whose duties included bring - ing her drinks, occasionally primping her hair and pretend - ing to paint pictures of her while she performed. So, business as usual then for Mariah Carey, the pop diva who fell so publicly from grace in recent years. Having suf - fered an emotional and physi - cal breakdown virtually in front of our eyes during 2001, the woman who had sold 160 million albums over the previ - ous ten years failed even to reach the British Top 50 with her most recent CD, Charm - bracelet . Was she humbled, her spirit broken? Of course not She did what any self-respecting star of the modern age would have done and wrote a song about it As she performed My Saving Grace, a cloying ballad thank - ing the Lord for giving her the strength to carry on, pictures from her family photograph album flashed up behind her, intercut with recent news foot - age and headlines such as "Marian 's Breakdown" and "Mariah Standing Again". The crowd swayed along, and the sentiment flowed like syrup. But there was another side to the story and this show. Dur - ing the summer Carey was back near the top of the chart again with the single / Know What You Want, a salacious duet with the rapper Busta Rhymes. And it was a different Carey who performed that number on Thursday night (with Rhymes on a video screen). Her statuesque figure squeezed into a tiny pair of denim hot pants, she applied her famous five-octave range to the basics of this street - tough R&B track, while engaging in a dance routine that oozed with sexual intent Like Whitney Houston, who seemed to discover sex, drugs and hardcore R&B in her mid-thirties , Carey, now 33, has located this facet of her formerly airbrushed personal - ity comparatively late in her career. But having done so, she seemed eager to make the most of it and a similarly risque routine ensued on Fantasy, for which she was joined on the video screen by an alarming looking rapper called Old Dirty Bastard. There was a diversion into arena-rock territory with a comically thunderous rendi - tion of an old Def Leppard song, Bringin' on the H eart - break , but MOR sentiment eventually prevailed over sleaze as she wound up the occasion with full-bore ver - sions of the Harry Nilsson standard Without You and her 1993 hit Hero.