Friday Night Escapade: Janet Jackson's Number Ones World Tour

Ari Gold: Oh, I got tickets. Happy belated.
Johnny Drama: How are the seats ?
Ari: Nosebleed, just like you like 'em.

Yup, my husband, a couple of friends, and I were in the nosebleed section at Janet Jackson's Number Ones World Tour--but no need to feel sorry for us. The venue was pretty intimate so our seats--up in the balcony, somewhere in the back but near the center (we got our tickets late!)--were still pretty good.

Surveying the crowd, I wondered if I was now part of the, er, older set, and if high school and college kids now see me the way I see people who watch, oh, Fra Lippo Lippi (or Trini Lopez?). It was a decidedly older audience--definitely not the same people that'll be cheering for Taylor Swift in a couple of weeks!

SPOILER ALERT: Those who plan to watch the concert in other countries might want to stop reading now.

There was no opening act. Miss Janet got right into it, starting with an intro video I could barely understand. (She's kind of soft-spoken, and the crowd was screaming really loudly!) I gathered that she dedicated the song "Go Deep" to Manila, the first stop on her 35-country world tour.

The "Go Deep" video then started playing before Miss J burst into the theater through a side door! Here she is in outfit number one:

Photo from Map

In this skintight number, she did a bunch of her dance-y songs, including "Pleasure Principle" and, yes, "Feedback"!!! I went nuts! I was practically the only one jumping and dancing and singing along in our section.

In her next set, she wore a sparkly gown with a slit up-to-there...

Photo from Map

And performed some of her slow songs. She had the audience belt out the first verse of "Let's Wait a While," and she also sang a crowd favorite...

Super low quality--converted the video into a small file and this is what happened!

The way all the women in the audience were in raptures (you could tell from the giddy tone of the collective voices), this was one song many were really waiting for, and that a number of them were thinking back to the days when this song came out ("Suddenly the memories came back to me in my mind..."). It reminded me a lot of that scene in the movie Fired Up, where all the girls (and some of the boys) at cheer camp knew the entire Bring It On dialogue by heart!

After the senti set, she changed into a black outfit and started the third set with "Doesn't Really Matter," before going into lighter, feel-good dance classics like "Escapade" and "When I Think of You."

Photo from Map

She also performed "All for You," which brought back memories of me dancing to the song in college. Sigh.

Next set, another black outfit.

Here, she did her more hard-hitting songs, starting off with a "What About" interlude (another CADs dance number back in the day). Then there was the song that, I realized, had one of the videos that really made me want to get into dancing.

I remember trying to get the steps back in grade school, not an easy feat considering this was pre-YouTube (and pre-Internet, for that matter!). Even though my body probably won't be able to do the choreography anymore, I knew in my head which movements were coming during the dance break. During this set, she also sang "Scream," dueting with a recording of Michael's voice. I wondered what was going through her mind, hearing her late brother's voice.

For her finale, Janet came out in an all-white outfit and sang "Make Me" before ending with a very touching "Together Again"--as she sang and danced to the song, pictures of her and big brother Michael flashed onscreen.

Photo from Map

It was such a sweet, unexpected ending. This concert was pretty amazing--not only did it have a whole set list of songs that I could sing (and dance) along to, but it had so many layers: It was exciting, engaging, and surprisingly poignant. So worth the nosebleed seats!:D