Shania Twain returned to the stage for the first time in nearly a decade with the opening of her Shania…Still the Oneresidency at Caesars Palace Saturday night in Las Vegas. The high-tech, high-production show opened with Shania riding a motorcycle suspended in air to recreate her “I’m Gonna Getcha Good” video. In fact, the entire Vegas production capitalized on Shania’s iconic videos.
While planning the show with her production team, Shania recalls saying, “‘Let’s bring the videos to life,’ and so that’s what we’re doing, and we’re making them bigger than life, I think.”
That theme continued throughout the show as Shania delivered her biggest hits, ranging from the down-home, saloon-inspired production of “Any Man of Mine” and “Whose Bed Have Your Boots Been Under” to the high-concept interpretations of her “That Don’t Impress Me Much” and “Man! I Feel Like a Woman!” clips.
Throughout Saturday night’s opening concert, Shania clearly felt the adoration from the crowd. At one point, she even wiped away tears while worrying aloud that her eyelashes would fall off from too much crying. That performance also marked Shania’s first major concert performance in nearly a decade.
As with any high-stakes opening in Las Vegas, Shania admitted the critics were her biggest concern. Any negativity they might throw her way was clearly offset by the love from her fans though.
“The fans are who I am up there for,” Shania explained in a press event before the show. “I’m there for them, and I feel it. They’re there for the same reason that I’m there. We love the music and we love the entertainment, and so I feel like there’s a really positive exchange there.”
Many of the fans who caught Shania’s Come on Over tour in the late ’90s or her Up! tour a few year later have already bought their tickets for her run of shows in Vegas. The cutting-edge technology available in Caesars Palace’s theater, The Colosseum, allows Shania to put on a show far beyond what she could have taken on the road though. The production elements of the new stage amaze Shania even while she’s performing on it.
Talking about her intense rehearsals with her band and backing dancers, Shania says, “We’re seeing new things all the time happening behind us and around us that I’ve never had, or that I wouldn’t be able to have in a traveling show — a lot of the technology and that sort of thing. It’s just a wonder in itself I think.”
Of course, Shania’s show is based on her stellar run of hits from 1995 through 2002 from the multi-platinum albums she co-wrote with her former husband, super-producer Mutt Lange. Shania admits she never listened to her own albums once she was done recording them, so getting reacquainted with the music for the Vegas show was a bit of a challenge.
Once she began working on the songs for the show, Shania recalling thinking, “Why did I write so many words? What was I thinking? These songs are so wordy! It’s like I’ve tried to fit in so many words. I still have to walk and sing. I had to get reacquainted with pacing myself again.”
Fans attending Shania’s opening night could easily tell she was singing every note live on stage, even while wrangling live horses during two separate numbers. To take in Shania’s show for yourself, check out her concert dates at ShaniainVegas.com.
Copyright 2012 ABC News Radio
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