Whitney Houston continues to tour the planet with her Nothing But Love World Tour and has recently made her way to Australia (after performing shows in South Korea and Japan) and has hit a huge snag along the way. Whitney performed her first show in Oz this week (Brisbane, to be exact) and completely failed to impress her audience there. According to Aussie news reports, Whitney Houston‘s live performance on this tour has not been living up to expectations:
Whitney Houston’s Australian comeback is under fire after fans criticised the opening night of her Australian tour claiming the singer sounded ‘croaky and appeared ‘disorientated’. The American star struggled through the opening night of her first Australian tour since 1988, and was left breathless and exhausted after just two songs at her show at the Brisbane Entertainment Centre, it was claimed. And even more bizarrely, the 46-year-old took a 20 minute break to catch her breath mid-way through the show. After half a dozen songs she left the stage for twenty minutes to take a break, bringing on her brother, Gary Houston, to sing in her absence. The band and backing singers then performed an energetic version of one of her biggest hits, Queen of the Night, from The Bodyguard soundtrack. One fan interviewed on Australian TV after the show said: ‘It was a disgrace. She can’t sing. She didn’t sing one song properly. She was disorientated and she needed a 20-minute break. It was the first concert I have walked out of in my life.’ Another fan said: ‘She couldn’t entertain a dead rat, to be honest.’ Other fans took to Facebook and Twitter to complain about the ‘croaky’ quality of her voice. ‘ ‘We just got back from Whitney Houston concert in Brizzy and I feel so sorry for her. She sounded croaky,’ fan Rick Crystal said on Facebook. ‘#whitneyhouston should have toured 15 years ago. Voice not what it used to be,’ adavidholloway said on Twitter after the concert. Some fans said they would be demanding their money back. ‘The multi-award winning singer appeared disoriented and failed to properly name some of her backing band as she introduced them to the audience, ‘ wrote the Australian Associated Press’s music reviewer. ‘But the final act faltered at the finale when she croaked her way through I Will Always Love You, pausing to get a drink and towel herself down just as she was about to hit the song’s epic high note, which she turned into a soft coo,’ he added … the singer’s spokesman Andrew McManus said Whitney was ‘surprised’ by the negativity and rejected tabloid rumours that she was seriously ill after the performance. U.S. tabloid the National Enquirer claimed the 46 year old had collapsed due to a drug and alcohol binge, and that her health has declined in recent months, with family members begging the star to postpone her planned concerts. ‘It was not a train wreck,’ McManus said. ‘She was hitting most of the notes, yes her throat was a little croaky. ‘Her health is fine but she’s also not 22 years of age anymore.’ The Australian concerts are part of her comeback “Nothing But Love” tour which kicked off at the end of last year. ‘She was not fit to perform,’ wrote one on the Courier Mail newspaper’s website. ‘She seemed to be on another planet and the concert was laughable.’
Yikes! Those Aussies and their concert reviews … they’re quite vicious, no? You may recall that the folks in Oz unleashed this kind of ire towards Britney Spears last year when she performed her Circus tour there … but, in their defense, they may be right about Whitney‘s lackluster performance this time around. After the jump, check out video of Whitney‘s performance of I Will Always Love You and judge for yourselves whether or not Whit was up for the task of performing …
Yeesh … yeah, she sounds pretty rough. But, in all honesty, I still love the woman and I’m convinced her live performance will be up to par by the time she tours the US later on this year. You keep on goin’, Whitney! No one said comebacks were easy … you just keep on goin’!!
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oh-my-god…..
OMG she butchered her own song! WTF WHITNEY!?!
I don’t think the Aussie press was vicious, just brutally honest. Let’s face it: drugs have ruined Houston’s voice. It’s sad, and I’ll always root for her, but she’ll never be what she was, and that’s her own fault. I just hope for the sake of herself and her daughter than she’s still sober.
Yea the aussie’s are harsh because they actually know what good music is! I’m sorry but Britney Spears is not good music, all she does is lip sync and dance around. She’s a good dancer and entertainer, but that’s it.
Sadly Whitney Houston well….yeah she butchered her own song. *Sigh* what happened Whitney…
@Daniel – Don’t you mean she butchered Dolly Parton’s song? =) LOL! I hope Dolly doesn’t see that performance.
I watched the footage that the media had recorded before the tour promoters and her management kicked all the media out and I literally gasped and covered my mouth and it was only after the second and third songs. It was dreadful. It makes aussies sound terrible, but at least with britney you got one hell of an awesome show (even if you didnt like the lipsyncing – I couldmy care less imho), but all you got was a whitney that stood there, wiped her brow, blew air through her teeth and croaked her songs, I half feel sorry for her and half dont coz she is such a diva. If her other shows she sings perfectm you will have to assume she is lipsyncing….
Well, I don’t see it as being that bad, actually… How does Tina Turner sound compared to her younger self? Or Bob Dylan? Or Aretha Franklin? As singers get older, the voice does change, and yes there might be smoking/drugs/etc effects as well.
But “croaky”? I dunno. I think it’s just a different sound that what we were used to from her, and with her not performing for so long, we missed the change happening… so the contrast is more marked.
I actually think she sounds a lot like Macy Gray here.
“Butchered” because she changed up the song, singing softly instead of the caterwauling high wails? That’s also very commonly done with old classic songs.
I won’t argue that perhaps she was ‘a mess’ in terms of fatigue and needing to take breaks and all that. And her voice has indeed changed, a lot. But I don’t think it SUCKS. It’s still better than *I* could ever do, and at least I give her big props for actually SINGING LIVE.
I think many audiences have become spoiled by the canned/autotuned/artificially perfected lip-synced so-called “concerts” that have become the norm these days, that we’ve forgotten what the human voice is actually supposed to sound like for real…
@ Daniel, Camille, Kris, &CB, MY THOUGHTS EXACTLY. Especially Kris. Maybe Trent thinks OZ has a problem with aristist with names that end in “itney”? LOL! The both sucked. It happends.
@DJ Vegas — “Maybe Trent thinks OZ has a problem with aristist with names that end in “itney”?” LOL, yes, that’s exactly what I think.
I really think her comeback should have been small, club shows – not stadiums. What were they thinking?
She should do a show in Vegas a la Celine.
She sounded awful. And it didn’t seem like it was just her voice that was off….her head seemed a little wacked out too! And it wasn’t even the high and difficult notes that she couldn’t sing, even the low notes were wrong! I might have to start looking to Australia for music tips…they aren’t afraid to call crap, crap. People buy into the hype too much in the states.
@Heather. Dont drag Tina into this. You know not of what you speak.
Oh Dear. Crack kills.. vocal cords.
She did sound okay a few times, but it also sounded like she might be a little emphysemic, especially if she kept having to take breaks to “catch her breath”.
Two of my friends went to the concert in Brissy. They’ve been fans forever and were really disappointed. I see on Ticketek that all of the tickets to her shows are now half-price. Ouch.
Did anyone else think that the timing issue might had been her waiting for the click track to kick in with the “money notes” at the end of the song? Bless her heart!
I saw Tina live, and she was absolutely spectacular – in every respect. Please don’t compare her to this disasterous performance. I like Whitney’s new album, but this was terrible.
OUCH! Sad, sad, sad, sad, sad, sad, sad, sad, sad!
It sounds as if she ate a piece of glass and decided to sing. Poor thing.
As an Aussie, I have to disagree with the ‘viscious’ comment, we’re far from it. If anything the Australian media is brave for telling it as they see it and not giving special treatment to big names. I work at Ticketek, the seller of the Whitney concert tix, and I am just so mortified that customers paid up to $300 for this. If she had any respect for her fans she’d cancel and refund the remaining concerts.
Yeah, that ending was pretty painful. I’m wondering why in the world she’s on tour when she can’t represent herself or her songs properly for her fans? I’m embarrassed for her. There has to be something that can be done to improve her voice because it’s still there somewhere. I mean, on Oprah she sounded amazing. It’s bizarre.
i didnt think it was that bad ……it wasnt perfect but it wasnt awful