The moment I watched Usher cheekily wink at The O2 audience while seductively feeding a woman cherries was when I knew what his Past Present Future tour was really about.
After 30 incredible years at the top of his game, this show wasn’t about proving anything to critics and his peers or just going through the motions to make easy money. It was all about having fun in Usher’s way as he deserved to having enjoyed a pretty perfect and non-stop career for three decades, while also celebrating all that’s been and all there is to come.
Seeing Usher, 46, perform at London’s O2 arena on the first night of his UK tour was a full circle moment for me as it was 20 years ago that I saw him at Wembley as my first-ever concert. Sitting in my floor seat with the best view, I remember watching in awe at Usher’s showmanship and thus my love for live music began.
I’ve been fortunate to see him again twice since then but, dare I say, his performance last night at The O2 proved he’s better than ever.
The comparisons between the R&B superstar and ‘king of pop’ Michael Jackson have long been said and Usher wasted no time in addressing this, ascending on stage from below and slickly swivelling around under a spotlight while wearing a glittering Jackson-esque outfit.
From there, the energy barely let up for the next hour as Usher pumped through a selection of his early hits, taking us down memory lane with U Make Me Wanna (accompanied by a stage version of the music video’s iconic choreography) and making us two-step nostalgically to U Remind Me and U Don’t Have To Call.
Despite some of these songs being released more than 20 years ago, they felt brand new and Usher gave each one the attention they deserved. He may have nothing to prove but these throwback moments did provide the chance for Usher to show that he’s still got it and has no struggles with the body-popping choreography he perfected in his 20s.
In recent years, the music icon has attracted thousands of fans to Las Vegas where he first introduced the most exciting and ambitious new element of his stage show – rollerskating.
I did wonder how that would translate from the intimate Vegas stage to The O2, but as Usher casually glided around the circular stage without performing any moves that were too complex, it made sense for the new space it was in.
The rollerskating wasn’t all Usher brought from Vegas; when he and his dancers weren’t simulating sex during the more sensual songs on the setlist such as Seduction and Nice & Slow – and when the women weren’t pole dancing on the other side of the arena – Usher was feeding cherries to female audience members and even encouraging a happy husband to do the same to his wife in one of the more light-hearted moments.
The first night of Usher’s Past Present Future tour in the UK was near-perfect but not without its flaws; there were a couple of stumbles from the dancers and Usher himself (all recovered expertly that most may not even have noticed) and an instance or two where the band weren’t on the same starting page as the frontman, but it ultimately humanised Usher as was to be expected with all the intricacies of the performance.
Some moments did drag on a little too long, like him walking to the other side of the arena to take shots with his pole-twerking dancers.
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None of that mattered though when you had delicious moments like the Superstar singalong that soaked the entire arena, or Usher’s vulnerability during songs like U Got It Bad.
Even with the few wobbly moments, this was still Usher at his best and – after 30 years in the game – that’s the unthinkable.
Usher’s Past Present Future tour continues at London’s O2 Arena for selected dates in April and May, Paris on April 15 and 16, selected dates in Amsterdam from April 22-28, and selected dates in Berlin from May 1-4.
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