Review: Shania Twain largely keeps Toronto fans in ecstasy

Shania Twain

June 23 at the Budweiser Stage, Toronto

Probably the last thing Shania Twain expected while hosting her “Queen of Me” party for over 16,000 fans was to participate in a gender reveal.

But midway through her two-hour set of the first of two weekend shows on Budweiser Stage, Twain read a sign held aloft by a Newfoundland woman who made the bold request, hoping her idol would notice.

She noticed, okay, and invited the trembling woman onstage in what could only have been a moment of squeezing for the mom-to-be.

“So what should I do?” asked the Windsor-born superstar, and was handed the sealed results of an ultrasound. Twain kept the tension high for a few seconds after opening the envelope, serenading the woman with a few a cappella verses from “From This Moment On” and sneaking in the lyrics that it was a baby girl who was the future mother of two wore.

“That’s one of the most emotional moments I’ve ever had on stage,” Twain said afterwards — and it was one of many surprises — which included a performance by Toronto Maple Leafs right winger Mitch Marner and his fiancée, Stephanie, who cut a rug around an abbreviated rendition of “Up” and a presentation of a plaque by Twain’s record company to commemorate her status as the best-selling female country artist — that would make the evening memorable for the veteran Grammy and Juno winner.

Another surprise: despite some voice surgeries in 2018 and concerns by the singer that her voice has changed significantly, there was no discernible difference between the old Shania and the 2023 model. At 57, seemingly at 30, the timeless and glamorous beauty – in a red wig and a dress that slit down to her right thigh – confidently spent most of her 19-song set while fronting a six-piece band with a guitarist/violinist and two male backing singers/dancers.

The only blemishes were when she ventured into a low, quiet register and was drowned out by the band, but those are technical faults: overall, Twain delivered a performance that was more hit than miss, split between dazzling Vegas glitter and intimate, hanging living room.

Audience reaction for most of the show ranged from ecstatic and feverish to, in one spot, indifference, but heading into the concert, the odds were clearly in Twain’s favor.

With the invaluable collective input of her ex, production mastermind “Mutt” Lange — who was uncredited — the duo revolutionized country music with a fashionable upgrade that also worked wonders in making it known worldwide and establishing Twain as a crossover. superstar in both pop and stone.

Forging punchy, exceptional melodies into some of the happiest, most upbeat love songs around and empowering women in the process, Twain’s intriguing rags-to-riches backstory and radiant personal warmth have forged a trailblazing path that has imbued Canadians with a sense national pride as much as property.

So “Team Shania” responded to hits like “You’re Still the One” and especially “Any Man of Mine” with lavish revelry, losing it completely with the encore anthem finale of “That Don’t Impress Me Much” and “Man! I feel like a woman.”

“Under whose bed have your boots been?” “Rock This Country!” and “(If You’re Not in It for Love) I’m Outta Here!” lived up to their exclamation points in energetic fun, and the shuffle rhythms of “Forever and For Always” seemed a little livelier than the recorded version.

There was lavish visuals, too—there was a lighthearted, if inexplicable theme involving aliens and saloon destruction that played in the background of the two-tiered stage all evening—and Twain had the stage transformed into a nightclub of sorts, with fans gathered around tables as she waltzed with one of her backing singers.

But the powerful impact of the beautiful material from the Twain/Lange albums “The Woman in Me,” “Come On Over,” and “Up” revealed the Achilles’ heel of the singer/songwriter’s current set: her newer material.

After their personal and creative separation, the specter of Lange is particularly present on the songs he not co-write: “Giddy Up!” and the disco-driven “Number One” are passable, but not memorable.

The most telling moment was ending the main set on “Queen of Me,” the title track of her latest, with a thud: if that song was supposedly the rousing finale to whet the appetite for the encore, it failed miserably. It didn’t seem to get through to the audience that the main part of the show was over.

Twain would either have to change the order of the set to run it sooner or replace it with one of the bona fide hits she left out.

You can’t replace quantity with quality and expect people not to notice.

Putting this nagging aside, Twain — who is performing Oct. 22 in Toronto at Scotiabank Arena — stated at the start of the show that she was having a lot of fun these days.

“I’m living my best life!”

With the enthusiastic response the adoring public promised to their version of musical royalty, you better believe it.

Although the show’s opener, Calgary’s Lindsay Ell, played a disjointed set that seemed to contain a lot of stop-and-start, she did a first: she used a vocoder for a few lines of a song.

But what sets her apart from other country ingues is that she hails from the Suzy Bogguss school of guitar heroes, albeit more rock-driven: the highlight of her show was when she plopped onto her back, her head dangling over the edge of the stage, so she turned the crowd upside down and started ripping an electric guitar solo that would make Jimi Hendrix proud.

Maybe instead of hosting “Canada’s Got Talent,” Ell should enter the contest: she’d have a real shot at winning it.

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