POP MUSIC REVIEW : Cher: Glitz, Not Gold

SAN DIEGO —  Watching Cher go through her pop-celebrity paces Thursday night at the San Diego Sports Arena, one could only wish that she would slip into something a little more comfortable--like an alter ego.

Give Cher a role to play--the vulnerable nuclear-munitions worker of “Silkwood,” say, or even a witch of Eastwick--and she suddenly becomes an artist, a conduit for stories and passions.

Singers who treat songs the way committed actors treat their characters can be conduits, too. But in a lazy hour on stage, some of which she spent singing, Cher was interested only in spotlighting what’s least substantial about herself: herself. Or at least that side of herself that is bound up in being a celebrity.

Cher’s concert was so much like a testimonial that rubber chicken should have been served. It began with a five-minute, this-is-your-life video sequence that ranged from her baby photos to her acceptance speech for the 1988 best-actress Oscar.

At mid-set came more video history, this time chronicling her partnership with former husband Sonny Bono (dispensing with all the Sonny & Cher hits via old footage saved Cher the trouble of having to sing any of them live). And, with the video screen lowering yet a third time, we got to see a montage of clips from Cher’s acting career.

Cher made a teasing joke early on about doing her concert “naked.” For all the well-toned flesh she showed as she changed from outfit to skimpy outfit (there were eight costume changes in all, or was it nine?), Cher had a screen to guard her--the image-making TV screen to which she owes her stardom.

Cher seldom dared to stand naked in a more meaningful sense, with only her emotive resources and the quality of her songs to carry the performance. In one of the most annoyingly cluttered uses of choreography this side of David Bowie’s overblown 1987 “Glass Spider” tour, Cher was surrounded by seven dancers who rushed and swung about a scaffolded set that resembled the backstage rigging of a theater.

Like the video screen, the dancers served Cher as a convenient, labor-saving crutch. With all that motion around her, she could afford to move at a walk. Consequently, she never broke a sweat.

Cher isn’t without talent as a singer. Until her voice began to fray toward the end, her deep, melodramatic belting sounded full-bodied compared to the girlish tones in vogue on the pop charts since Madonna hit the scene. It’s the way Cher uses her voice that is so inadequate.

Instead of trying to delve into a song, changing the dynamics, shading tones--doing the things that good singers do to communicate feeling--Cher just kept belting. Exaggeration and melodrama are as much a part of her celebrity persona as her revealing outfits.

Cher sang six songs from the 1987 and 1989 albums that marked her successful pop comeback after five years of building her acting career. These were slight, cliched affairs ideally suited to her bombast. The rest of the 12-song set consisted of unimaginative covers of such familiar material as Bruce Springsteen’s “Tougher Than the Rest,” the Eagles’ “Take It to the Limit” and Bob Seger’s “Fire Down Below.”

The best of the lot was a spunky, show-opening version of “I’m No Angel,” by Cher’s ex-husband Gregg Allman (their teen-age son, Elijah, was a shy rhythm guitarist among his mom’s 10-member crew of players and singers, which also included Darlene Love, the lead voice of several early-’60s Phil Spector hits). Cher appeared at the start in a relatively demure pinkish pants outfit, giving rise to fleeting hopes that she might be putting the focus on music rather than image. The parade of lingerie and other glitz began soon after.

The show’s low point was a shrill, heavy-handed attempt at Jimmy Cliff’s eloquent soul-gospel song “Many Rivers to Cross.” The least intimate of singers, Cher utterly failed to convey the sense of inner meditation that gives the song much of its power.

Cher did have an engagingly offhand way of addressing her fans, calling them “guys” and treating them like old pals. But her performance seldom put a charge into the crowd. Tellingly, some of the most enthusiastic applause greeted scenes on the video screen--especially the clips from Cher’s film career--instead of the live performance unfolding on stage.