Justin Timberlake's ambitious new stage show is a confused mix of towering spectacle and awkward structure, where the real fans may miss out, writes Peter Crawley
Don't blame it on the sunshine. Don't blame it on the moonlight. Don't blame it on the good times. Blame it on the FutureSex/Love Sounds.
Nobody seems quite sure what FutureSex/LoveSounds are, exactly - will sex evolve into something different in years to come? Does love generate distinct noise? - but whatever they are they seem to get Justin Timberlake into trouble. "She's hopped up on me," Justin confides to us in the song of the same name, sounding more than a little bit bothered. "I've got her in my zone, her body's pressed up on me, I think she's ready to blow. Must be my future sex love sound." Must be.
Defining Justin Timberlake's appeal is not easy, but to judge from his soaring album sales in a relatively stagnant market, his innumerable critical plaudits, or the screeching approval of his predominantly female fans in Belfast's Odyssey Arena a few weeks ago, he's clearly got it in spades. And Justin Timberlake, who began his career singing, dancing and smiling alongside Christina Aguilera and Britney Spears on The All New Mickey Mouse Club, and then served time as the cherubic and de facto leader of one of pop music's less contemptible boybands, 'N Sync, has now progressed to manhood and musical credibility. There are those who frequently attest that he is the most desirable thing on this earth, and in their hopes FutureSex is not some hypothetical development in procreation. It is a proposition.
Sad to report it then, but Timberlake the stage performer has clearly developed intimacy issues.
The problem with the "FutureSex/ LoveShow featuring Justin Timberlake" (as it is introduced) is that everyone wants to get close to Justin and Justin wants them to think that they can. Timberlake, who has also directed the show, makes a valiant attempt to create as intimate a live experience as the enormodomes and outdoor stadiums of the world will allow, but the show itself creates more problems than it solves.
TAKE THE STAGE, for example. Performing his show in the round, the structure Timberlake has settled on is an odd mix of cruciform runways that extend in the four directions of the compass, linked together by a circular gangway. From above, it looks slightly like the symbol Prince used to trade under. At regular interludes, curved transparent screens drop down from above, folding in on the space like a cocoon. This is where some stunningly designed video images will flicker, where ghostly apparitions of choir singers will appear, and - regardless of your position - the place you are most likely to see Justin himself.
Then there is the "club".
The SexyBack Dance Club is part VIP area, part mosh pit, part dreadful mistake. Two cordoned-off areas, hugging the stage, are equipped with their own bar and patrolled by mountainous security guards. Forty bar stools, ostensibly the best seats in the house (or stadium), allow you to pay through the nose for a cocktail in a FutureSex/LoveSounds souvenir cup, scrutinise a dancer's G-string, catch a glimpse of JT as he runs circuits of the gangway, or - hope upon hope - actually lay a finger on his ankle.
Just don't try to take a photograph or a glowering security guard who looks like he may have recently consumed about three Justin Timberlakes will tell you not to.
At the forthcoming RDS show this privilege costs €380 per barstool (almost five times the cost of a regular seated ticket), with standing tickets in same area setting you back €120 (almost twice the cost of a regular standing ticket). There are many who will question the wisdom of a former Mouseketeer turning his stage into a licensed premises, but such is the transformation of Timberlake from clean-cut heartthrob to sexually-charged tough guy. The pose is not always convincing: "If there is anyone in pop less comfortable singing the word 'motherf***er', he hasn't made a record yet," wrote the New Yorker's Sasha Frere-Jones of Timberlake's single SexyBack.
But the real problem with putting your mosh-pit behind a velvet rope is that it cancels out the one honourable rule of live concerts - that the fans prepared to queue for a gig inconceivably early will always get closest to the action. As those who had queued early to see Timberlake looked glumly over a pit of corporate liggers, radio competition winners and, of course, music journalists reaching out to Justin, the star seemed only to come in reach of those willing to pay top dollar.
At a time when live music has replaced album sales as the most important cash cow for any musician, this executive-class development in concerts could still have unfortunate consequences. Every ticket tout knows that a true fan puts no price ceiling on their devotion, and if more tours take a leaf out of Justin's book, or decide to emulate Live 8's Gold Circle area for less altruistic causes, it is the price that live music will have to pay.
TIMBERLAKE HIMSELF IS one of the few performers with personality, music and dancing skills to make some amends. Although there is not quite enough of him to go around the stage, it's a pleasure to see him strut into position and fall into formation moves with his entourage. His determination to prove himself musically means he will adopt various instruments throughout the night: a guitar, a piano, a keytar, a tuba. (Well, maybe not the tuba, but it can only be a matter of time.) Fans of laser beams and light shows will not go home disappointed.
Timberlake is blessed too with some of this century's finest pop songs, such as Cry Me a River and SexyBack, both of which owe their existence and brilliant experimentation to the hip-hop producer Timbaland. As recompense for this Faustian pact, perhaps, Timbaland has commanded a 30-minute half-time show in which Justin leaves the stage and the producer-turned-rapper shows up to plug his lacklustre album, Shock Value.
Given that his album's best song, Give It To Me, features Justin on vocals, but is delivered to the arena without him, it seems like a waste of a good Timberlake.
You can forgive Timberlake many follies - for all his youthful success, celebrity entanglements, wardrobe malfunctions and carefully groomed party-boy image, you will never find him hopping in and out of rehab or shaving his head clean on a whim. Likeable, self-aware and alive to the material demands of an industry and his place within it, Timberlake has ended up in a confused show of towering spectacle and awkward structure, creating an unsustainable illusion of intimacy with troublingly dead patches.
You can see what has led him here. Instead of a flat stage show relayed through a stadium via enormo-vision screens, Timberlake has strived for invention. The careful distance he has placed between his squeaky clean origins and his emergence as a club lothario who has seen the future of sex now results in a VIP stage area with its own bar.
It's a shame, but these are the mistakes of trying to please everyone. It's also why Justin will always seem more comfortable performing moony ballads than hoisting female dancers towards his crotch: he may act the cad, but his intentions are entirely honourable.
• Justin Timberlake performs at the RDS, Dublin, on June 31 and July 1. Tickets are available for the second date