NY Daily News Concert Review

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Cher-ishing
The Queen of Camp

By JIM FARBER, Daily News Music Critic

Only three kinds of creatures can bring off wearing a multi-tiered, diamond-encrusted, fur-covered headdress: the queen of an ancient land, an alien from outer space, and Cher.

A melding of all three seemed to appear at the start of Cher's alleged "Farewell" concert at Madison Square Garden last night.

After springing out of a descending crystal ball, the star revealed that heady getup, which made her look like a cross between Ming the Magnificent with a hormonal problem, and Glinda the Good Witch, after too much time in the poppy fields of Oz.

It was ridiculous. It was hideous. It was Cher!

No longer contained by the common roles of singer, dancer, entertainer, actress, survivor, or even icon, Cher has turned into a point-of-view made flesh. She is camp incarnate. And she worked hard in this show (which returns to the Garden tonight, then hits Nassau Coliseum on Sunday and the Meadowlands July 2) to live up to that spangly reputation.

To do so, Cher spent a good amount of time saluting her own history of cherished silliness. Like the star's last tour, her 1999 comeback smash "Believe," the new show draws almost entirely from the hits of her 37-year career. To break things up, and provide breathing room for this no-longer-pink star, there were video retrospectives of her work in TV and movies, plus flips through what some might call her crimes of fashion. (Co-conspirator: designer Bob Mackie.)

Yet those who let such accoutrements obscure the music do so at their own risk. The fact is, Cher boasts a deep catalogue of pop gems. Highlights here included her first solo hit, a cover of Dylan's "All I Really Wanna Do," the fantastically goofy "Half Breed," the florid "Way Of Love," and her latest club winners, "Lonely" and "Believe".

How much enhancement was added to her voice wasn't always clear. In the most electronically tricked-up songs, she had obvious help. But mostly that oddly ticky voice of hers sounded unaided and strong.

A troupe of dancers backed Cher, operating more like acrobats than hoofers. During the night, Cher displayed an unending host of duds, dressing as a spangly circus master, a hippie chick, an S&M tart, and what looked like Conan the Barbarian's favorite concubine.

In her most daring move, Cher wore that barely-there black getup from the 1989 "If I Could Turn Back Time" video, prompting the musical question: What other 56-year-old would dare appear in a thong?

In pulling this off, Cher was both doing her part to keep the world safe for the ridiculous, and making sure to age as disgracefully as possible.

More power to her.