Music review: It's a lovefest for Chris Brown
Should Chris Brown get a second chance? The people who filled the Fillmore on Thursday for the local stop of his 19-city Fan Appreciation Tour certainly seemed ready to move on.
They came bearing banners. They shrieked every time he shed a layer of clothing. They loudly sang along to his hits. They chanted, "We want Chris!" They even bought souvenirs.
Just a few months after pleading guilty to felony assault charges for attacking his ex-girlfriend, Rihanna, it appears that the 20-year-old R&B star is walking away from the whole incident relatively unscathed. His new single, "I Can Transform Ya," is climbing the charts; his third major- label release, "Graffiti," is due next month; and he's probably got more name recognition now than ever thanks to the intense media coverage of the case.
Brown wasn't at the Fillmore to make amends. "I came here to party!" he said repeatedly.
In an hourlong set - give or take the intermission where he hopped around while his DJ played the Black Eyed Peas' "I Gotta Feeling" - Brown ran through snippets of his past hits and a few new songs, making little effort to sing or even lip-sync along with much of the recorded music.
The mostly female audience devoured every minute, whether Brown was ripping off his shirt and grinding the stage for "Take You Down" or serenading them with "With You," one of his many generic, digitized ballads.
As Brown got ready to close his set with the singles "No Air," which included Jordin Sparks' voice appearing from a hard drive, and "Forever," now best known as the soundtrack to that YouTube wedding video, a handful of undergarments landed on the stage.
Brown held up a white bra. "Are they DD?" he beamed.
The Fillmore might seem like a long way from the Oracle Arena, which Brown easily sold out two years ago, but give it time. He's still got a few community service hours to put in.
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