Last week I was on vacation – I didn’t have anywhere to go, but I had a lot of stuff to do. One of the main reasons I decided to take last week off was because I had two concerts to go to: Lily Allen and Britney Spears’ Circus.

I left to pick up my friend around 2:30.  Took me over a half hour to get there, and she wasn’t expecting me so early, so we didn’t leave her place until about 3:25.  Drove to my sister’s place and picked her up. Headed south to Tacoma – right at the beginning of rush hour (plus all of the others that were heading south to see Britney Spears). By the time we picked up our final friend (and switched cars, she drove to the Tacoma Dome) it was about 5:30PM. Parking was expected to SELL OUT by 6PM.  So, I was a little worried, even though we prepaid parking. (Turns out there was a special “prepaid lot” so nothing to worry about.)

We proceeded to get in line. (There were several large lines, divided into sections – A, B, C, etc.) While we were waiting in line, I was surprised to see — religious protesters?

We finally made it into our seats, and waited for the opening act: The Pussycat Dolls.  While they’re not my favorite group, they were entertaining. And the one with the short hair sure can dance!

 Finally, Britney Spears came on, and the crowd went wild. I’m not sure, but I believe there were upwards of 20,000 people there. Amazing! The crowd ranged, from tweens to middle -aged women. I’d say at least 95% were solidly behind Brit’s comeback. (At least from where we were sitting.)

All in all, it was a fantastic show. When you go to see Britney Spears, you are expecting a show – not necessarily art, or fantastic music – you’re expecting a performance….and that’s exactly what you get!  The energy was high, the performance was pretty impeccable. She did a great job of incorporating the circus theme into the show – cages, acrobatics, ribbon dancers, creepy clown guys, etc. (Unfortunately, there were no dancers dressed as circus animals!) I only really had two gripes: First, I wish we were closer. This is the kind of show where you WANT to see the detail. Second, the giant screen that was above the stage (it was a circular screen that rose and came down and met the stage to both entertain the crowd and to help hide position changes) showed random videos for most of the show. It would have been nice to see what was going on on-stage…on the screen. Like you do at sporting events. But, it was an entertaining show and I’d go and see it again.  We had a blast!!!  

*Pictures of Britney courtesy of Becca. We were too far away to get good close up pictures!