Celine Dion

BEFORE I mention anything about Celine Dion's Monday night performance, it should be noted that support band The Corrs played to a full house, something that this critic hasn't ever witnessed before at The Point. Even better times ahead for the Dundalk band, methinks.

As for Celine Dion, she really is the Power Ballad Diva Supreme, irrespective of whether one reckons her to be a valid, emotive vocalist, or a purveyor of vacuous nonsense. She looks the part, too, dressed as she was in an angelic white cat suit, sinuous, tanned to perfection, and singing into a white microphone.

Very much the supermodel singer with dramatic, overly punctuated flourishes, Celine began her quite startling high quality cabaret show with The Power Of Love, a sturdy ballad that added both nuance and weight to Jennifer Rush's original version. Thoroughly in command throughout the show, Celine orchestrated every move of her backing band and singers, as much a diva as a benign dictator.

Her effusive between-song stage patter helped to balance out the ballads - none of which were particularly subtle - with the rock material. Songs such as All By Myself and the concert's set piece, the epic It's All Coming Back To Me Now, proved that Celine's forte is in bombastic balladry, a contradiction in terms with which she and her audience seem to have little problem. The rock songs in the set - River Deep, Mountain High and Twist And Shout, to name but two - came across as banal props to a show that needed regular pacing.

That said - what a voice. Phew!