Just over 50 years ago it did not seem like Janet Jackson was destined to follow in her brothers’ auspicious footsteps. After middling results for her first two albums, it seemed like acting (“Good Times,” “Diff’rent Strokes,” “Fame”) would be the youngest Jackson’s milieu more than music.
But initial appearances can be deceiving, as she’s reminding us on her Together Again Tour, which stopped Wednesday night, May 24, at Detroit’s Little Caesars Arena.
Starting with 1986’s “Control,” of course, Jackson became a pop juggernaut who at one point even challenged late brother Michael for mega-platinum supremacy. Her career totals are impressive — more than 100 million records sold worldwide, a record for most consecutive top 10 singles (18) on the Billboard Hot 100, eight Guinness World Records and a Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction. She hasn’t done much for us lately — Jackson’s last album, “Unbreakable,” came out eight years ago — but her legacy is as bullet-proof as they come.
And that’s exactly what she celebrated on Wednesday, serving up a reminder of her many musical glories over the course of an hour and 50 minutes. And there was an emphasis on the many; following rapper Ludacris’ high-octane opening set, Jackson and company — four physically sculpted dancer and a five-member band — ran through parts of a whopping 40 songs, divided into four “acts” plus an encore, during the career-spanning evening, not counting recorded bits of others heard during the costume-change breaks. With an energized sell-out crowd of about 14,000 watching, the show had a kind of breathless, mixtape quality, but to Jackson’s’ credit it seldom felt rushed or superficial; rather, it came off like a proud mom displaying all her “children,” carefully not favoring one over the other.
And much as we like to say about Michigan weather, if you weren’t digging a particular moment of show, stick around ’cause it changed very quickly.
A degree of taste and unusual restraint certainly distinguished Together Again — her first Detroit visit in nearly six years and her second to Little Caesars — from previous stage spectacles by Jackson and other pop divas in general. The staging was refreshingly minimal, basically an open dance floor with the band tucked mostly in the back, although it came forward during segments of the show, and a modicum of props. Jackson’s costume changes were kept to five and even then weren’t over the top, ranging from a form-fitting glittery gold jumpsuit to a black Rhythm Nation T-shirt saluting her hit 1989 album.
Even the dancing was pared down; Jackson, 57, and her troupe executed crisp routines with military precision, never — like the song list — staying in one place for too long. Jackson roamed the front of the stage with easy familiarity, playing to fans but avoiding any drawn-out dialogue.
Mostly she just kept the hits coming. There were three versions of “Together Again” during the night, including slower DJ Premier and Jimmy Jam remixes as well as the familiar hit version used for the encore. “What Have You Done For Me Lately” segued neatly into “Nasty” and then “The Pleasure Principle.” Guitar solos from the rocking “Black Cat” were mashed into “Scream,” Jackson’s duet with Michael (who appeared via video). And a crisp “Rhythm Nation” brought the main set to an exuberant close. There were a few conspicuous gaps in the proceedings, but the medleys mostly flowed smoothly from on song to the next.
The show’s only shortcomings were technical. The sound design was cluttered throughout, blending what was live on stage with plenty of enhancement, including backing vocals and additional instruments while a DJ/mixer did most of the heavy lifting. Jackson’s own vocals were often obscured (perhaps deliberately?) within the bottom-heavy sonic maelstrom, and stage video that was out-of-sync with the performance certainly didn’t help her cause. A tour of this ambition and expense should be better than that.
But left to pick apart those issues or just enjoy the hit parade, the Little Caesars crowd chose the latter. They were just happy to be, yes, together again with Jackson and her formidable body of work, which has certainly aged well over the past five decades.
