MY LOVE IS YOUR LOVE: LIVE
ALBANY TIMES UNION - 3 JULY 1999

By STEVE BARNES, Staff writer
First published: Saturday, July 3, 1999

At $75, too few dig Whitney.

Whitney Houston can charge whatever she wants for tickets to her concerts, but she's got to know that $75-apiece seats will seriously limit her audiences.

That was the most obvious lesson from her excellent show Friday at the Saratoga Performing Arts Center: Houston priced herself out of this market. Although Houston hasn't been at SPAC since 1991, she didn't sell more than 4,000 inside seats at the amphitheater; Friday's late-day nice weather helped people the lawn with a generous array of blanket-sitters, but even outside tickets were $25, and lawn patrons didn't have the privilege of watching SPAC's new video screens (Houston forbade their use).

All of which is too bad, because twice as many people ought to have seen the concert. When the band got rockin' and Houston's legendary pipes went soaring through their many and lovely octaves, you wanted there to be more people. It felt slightly disappointing not to have 10,000 or 15,000 fans urging Houston on, whether it was in a pair of gospel tunes, "I Go to the Rock'' and "I Love the Lord'' (both from the soundtrack of "The Preacher's Wife''), or the more danceable numbers from her current release, "My Love is Your Love.'' (In an adorable moment, Houston brought out her 6-year-old daughter, Bobbi Kristina, to sing the title track with her.)

Besides being in incomparable vocal form, having a terrific band and an equally impressive Dolce & Gabban wardrobe, Houston also had a great attitude. You couldn't imagine her wanting to be anywhere else.

Her hour-and-45-minute set featured almost 18 songs, about half of which were from the new release. On it Houston is positioning herself as street-smart and harder-edged. Especially striking Friday were the hip-hop influences evident on "I Learned from the Best,'' delivered with saucy impertinence and an independent spirit, and the derivative but effective radio hit, "Heartbreak Hotel'' (not the Elvis Presley tune).

Old favorites came up as well, including a slowed-down, rearranged  version of "Saving All My Love from You,'' from her 1985 debut
album, an enormous, wall-shaking "I will Always Love You'' and, certainly, the tune from "Waiting to Exhale'' that had the crowd
"shoop-shoop''ing in the aisles.

The young quartet 112 opened for Houston with a half-hour, nine-song session, split evenly between interchangeable tracks from their second CD, "Room 112,'' and cover versions of old soul and R&B ballads. Their set ended surrealistically with the appearance of a fast-rapping short man. It's not every day that a $75 ticket to hear "And I Will Always Love You'' comes with the dubious bonus of a motor-mouthed mite in leather pants.