CONCERT REVIEW | Jessica Simpson, The Reality Tour.

Show designed to connect singer to fans, and reveal her to be the normal girl as seen on TV. 

Seeing Jessica Simpson in the flesh is like seeing Barbie come to life. In her ruffled and flounced pink dress and mile-high heels, skin burnished to perfection and hair blonder than blond, one might think the 24-year-old star would be despised, but she isn’t. As Simpson took the stage on Friday night, amid screams from the pubescent and primarily female audience, it was clear that her young fans didn’t resent her for being beautiful. Like Barbie, Simpson is perfect fodder for the imagination. She inspires more than just envy.

Friday night’s concert also proved that many of Simpson’s fans aren’t in it for the music.

She was on stage for little more than an hour and most of her lyrics (despite heartfelt belting) were lost beneath the volume of the band. It was only when she paused to say a few words to the crowd, or when the jumbo screen that backed the stage projected moments from the hit show Newlyweds: Nick and Jessica, that the audience really seemed engaged. She might be a great singer, but it is Simpson herself – and her uniquely likeable personality – that makes her a star.

Though her 2004 tour is dubbed The Reality Tour, Simpson’s recent success is all about fan-fantasy.

Friday’s audience was teeming with Jessica wannabes (Skippers to her Barbie, perhaps), complete with their own flouncy minis and Louis Vuitton handbags (held by girls no more than fourteen in some cases), and this made perfect sense. Newlyweds has given Simpson’s fans a look into her ostensibly real life. And everything about that life, from massive shopping expeditions, a fabulous house, and a sweet and hunky husband, appeals.

More importantly, because the MTV-constructed Simpson isn’t as picture-perfect as her looks. (She farts, she burps, she pisses off her hubby.) Simpson’s whole Barbie Dream House life seems somehow attainable. The Reality Tour takes this into account. It’s always working to connect to the audience. And to make Jessica seem like the nice, normal girl she appears to be on television. The key concept here is that not only is Jessica Simpson the kind of girl you can imagine being friends with, she is the kind of girl you can imagine being.

From her unchoreographed dance moves to her question-and-answer schtick, all aspects of The Reality Tour seem designed to maintain and enhance Simpson’s normal-girl image.

What was surprising was that she really seemed to take the Q&A seriously. When asked if being famous was fun, she did let out a giggle, but she also managed a fairly long-winded response. In brief: Never having to make a reservation? Fun. Being surrounded by the (adorably mispronounced) “pavaratzzi”? Not fun.

Comic highlights included a rendition of Donna Summer’s She Works Hard for the Money, intertwined with short skits from the Nick and Jessica Variety Hour. (The Variety Hour in which Jessica performs a kitschy cross between Cher and Carol Burnett.) A more serious performance of You Don’t Have to Let Go was very good.  It’s a song Jessica says she wrote for her dad, and which he can’t get through without “boo-hooing”, and included a montage of family photographs. The only failure in the show’s music/movie marriage was a number dedicated to the American armed forces. Backed by an ultra-American video complete with enlisted dads saying goodbye to their families and numerous shots of the Stars and Stripes, it was awkward. While it might work well in the States, the north-of-the-border audience didn’t seem particularly touched.

Throughout the show, Simpson’s voice played second fiddle to the many other aspects of her character and her career, but that isn’t necessarily a bad thing.

Despite her abandonment of the usual pop-concert trappings, the evening was never boring. Clips from the TV series kept the audience entertained through three costume changes, and the audience chat kept it personal. All in all, the experience was a good one (and family-friendly to boot).

As Simpson herself put it: “I had fun. I went shopping.”

On Robson Street, actually. Just like we do.

Jessica Simpson: The Reality Tour hit Vancouver’s GM Place, Friday, July 23, 2004.

Jennifer Selk is a Vancouver arts writer. More music articles are here. 

This Jessica Simpson concert review, about The Reality Tour coming to Vancouver, was published in the Vancouver Sun, July 26, 2004. The original headline was “Simpson shows ‘real’ side of life.” See below.

Published July 26, 2004 in The Vancouver Sun.