If you don’t live in close proximity to any teenage girls you may not realize that Britney Spears was at the HP Pavilion Sunday night. Britney herself thought she was in Sacramento, but I’ll save that story for later. The Pussy Cat Dolls joined her for an Easter night concert that was not as great as it should have been but still left the audience screaming in delight.

I brought three 17 year old girls with me, and they were out of their minds with excitement to see Britney and the Pussy Cat Dolls. We arrived extra early so we would have time to buy some T-shirts ($40), a Britney mug ($10), a large bag of “Britney Pop Corn” ($4.50) and a soda in the Commemorative Britney Cup, a large orange plastic thing that will last approximately three runs in the dishwasher and cost $7.50. Then we took our Britney Pop Corn and our shirts and went to sit down.

The stage was set up like a three-ring circus with a cylindrical film screen hanging over the center ring. There was also a cylindrical curtain in the center ring allowing for entrances and exits through the middle. It was a nice set up that allowed the entire pavilion access to views of the stage and made every seat at the HPP a good one.

The Pussy Cat Dolls took the stage at 7pm, and although the Pavilion was barely half full at this time, the screams were deafening. My three guests were out of their minds with excitement as I nonchalantly sat in my seat updating my Twitter account about the concert – I’ll be honest, the PCD are not my thing, but I do enjoy some of their songs. There was a spiral staircase in the center ring which they used to dance on, and they also ran back and forth between the three rings. They had some great dance numbers and the audience loved them. Pussy Cat Doll lead singer Nicole Scherzinger gave a shout out to San Jose what seemed like 30 times in their 45 minute set; I suppose Britney wasn’t paying attention – but again, that’s for later in the story. The crowd went wild when they started up “Jai Ho” from Slumdog Millionaire, and again I give them props for their dance numbers, they definitely brought their skills with them. There were only five Pussy Cat Dolls on a huge three ring stage, but they made use of all three rings and really gave their all in the dance numbers. They closed their act with “When I Grow Up”, a song to which not even I am immune. I sang and danced with the rest of the audience, we shouted our applause as they ran off stage, and we sat back down to wait for Britney.

It was only quiet for about ten minutes while the crew rearranged the stage. Then the two side rings lit up and the audience was treated to some circus side shows while the crew worked on the center ring. There were dancers, acrobats and a rhythmic gymnast who put on an impressive hula hoop routine. There were a few clowns and more acrobats, and overall the 10-15 minutes of side shows kept the audience entertained. My guests were torn between losing their patience while waiting for Britney and being mesmerized by the shows below. Eventually though, the side shows stopped, the lights went down, the music started – and all hell broke loose, I thought my girls had lost their damn minds they were screaming so hard and the 30 year old woman next to me almost fell down the bleachers she was jumping up and down so much.

Before Britney arrived on stage, the cylindrical screen above the stage lit up with a video intro starring gossip blogger Perez Hilton dressed as a creepy but fascinating transvestite showgirl/courtesan. The video promised a crazy warped version of a circus to come and I was truly excited. The music changed to “Circus” and Britney arrived on stage to deafening applause. However it was already at this early point that the choreography started to show weaknesses. “Circus” is a pretty awesome song with some smart whip cracking sound effects. Britney had a whip in her hand and sometimes halfheartedly struck the ground with it, but there was no sharpness to the act. She was then put into a gilded circus cage on wheels where she writhed around for the entire song while background dancers rolled her from ring to ring.

This got old fast.

And it continued. No one expects Britney to actually sing at her concerts; whether she has that ability or not, I do not know, but what we do expect is Britney dancing and entertaining us. There were some ten second bursts of dancing that were unimpressive but mostly she bounced up and down on platforms or couches, and was repeatedly carried or rolled from ring to ring. As far as the singing went, lip synching is not really a big deal at this type of concert these days, but I was quite shocked that there didn’t appear to be any pretense of real music. There were some remixed intros, but the majority of the music was straight off her CDs. Halfway through the concert I started to wonder why we were even there: Britney isn’t dancing, she certainly isn’t singing – did I pay $65 + fees for each ticket just for the pleasure of being in the same room with her?

The lack of spectacle did not help matters. There were a couple short spurts of fireworks, there were five minutes of run of the mill magic tricks (Britney got sawed into thirds, and she appeared and reappeared satisfyingly), and there was a fire ring that petered out before it should have. But overall the stage rings were worn and very scuffed, and seemed too empty for such a big stage. There were not usually more than five or so dancers on stage with her at a time. Britney did cover all three stages often, but there was still a feeling of emptiness and lack.

This feeling was helped and hindered by the completely awesome cylindrical screen. Possibly I’m the only one, but I loved watching that screen. Serving as the only backdrop available in this theater-in-the-round, it constantly had videos, animation, lyrics, cartoons and atmospheric background running on it. It was really the one thing that saved the concert visuals; the artists, animators and cinematographers who put it together should be commended. The problem was that it was so good it also provided a glaring contrast for the emptiness on stage. At times there were videos of Britney herself on screen, shot in the visual style of her “Circus” video and they were sexy and just gorgeous. But down on stage, scuffed whiteness and Britney dancing her elementary dance steps.

Another glaring but welcome contrast came late in the concert when Britney left the stage and each of her background dancers came out for an individual solo as their name flashed on the screen above. The dancers were surprisingly AWESOME, and it was great to let them showcase their talents in that way. But why weren’t those talents used in the show choreography?? The Pussy Cat Dolls had excellent choreography and with only five dancers they were able to cover all three rings and wildly entertain the audience. Britney and her dancers rarely gave her audience this feeling. I think this was the biggest mistake the producers of this show made, if the choreography had been stepped up just for the background dancers I think everyone would have been happier. Obviously the dancers were capable of more than they were given.

An hour into the concert Britney actually turned her mic on and gave a shout out…

To Sacramento!!

There was a huge applause at first which quickly diminished to a smattering while everyone processed “What did she just say?” through their minds. Then half the audience, including me, applauded and screamed anyway. First of all, it’s Britney, but second – I kind of cut performers some slack on this even though they really should take the time to know this before taking the stage, and she was in Sacramento the night before. So to me, it was not big deal, but to my young guests… it surprisingly factored into their experience. To her credit, she corrected herself later in the concert and shouted “San Jose” a couple more times.

Britney left the stage right before the finale and the cylindrical screen lowered to the floor and showed hundreds of quick clips of all her videos while “Baby One More Time” played. This was another awesome five minutes of entertainment and whipped the crowd into a frenzy before Britney came back out in a police costume complete with shorty shorts. She closed down the show with “Womanizer”, the audience forgiving everything and sending her out with more screams, shouts and applause.

Was it a bum concert? No. I had a good time, the three girls had a good time, and the drunk woman next to me had a good time. It just could have been better – a LOT better. I gave it a B+ in my head and then asked my guests. They each rated it a B+, saying they were expecting a lot more, but they still had fun. 17 year old Morgan Phillips loved the concert as a whole but wasn’t happy that Britney “didn’t really sing and she didn’t really dance.” 17 year old Catalina Corral agreed saying “the dancing could have been a lot better but I did like it.” Stephanie Munoz summed it all up by saying that Britney just went through the motions when she danced, and “I don’t know what was up with that Sacramento comment. But I really liked the Pussy Cat Dolls.”