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Pop icon Céline Dion ended her 16-year residency at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas in June. But if there is another city that could host a residency, it is surely Montreal, in Dion’s hometown province.
Monday night, Dion — fully recovered from a throat virus that forced her to reschedule the Montreal concerts on her Courage World Tour — headlined the first of six highly anticipated concerts at the Bell Centre.
“This is a dream come true,” Dion told the cheering crowd in French, apologizing for the concert postponements. “Most of our team is from Montreal. The show is doing very well on the road, but this is where we want to be.”
If fans were upset about the concert postponements, all was forgiven last night: The 16,500 in attendance gave Dion a full-throated two-minute standing ovation before she even sang a note.
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The enthusiastic reception speaks volumes about the cult of Céline in this city. Montreal’s diva-worshipping gay community was also out in full force, just days after Dion’s surprise karaoke performance at the Lips drag-queen bar in New York City last week went viral on the web.
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Backed by a polished 17-piece band – including a string section, horn section and three backup vocalists who could match Céline chop-for-chop — the fist-pumping Dion performed a bilingual, two-hour, 24-song set.
Dion delivered authentic, vocally flawless renditions of her greatest hits, opening with her 1996 smash hit It’s All Coming Back to Me Now. She mixed English-language chart-toppers like I’m Alive, Power of Love and Beauty and the Beast with such French-language hits as S’il suffisait d’aimer, her 1993 gay anthem Un garçon pas comme les autres (Ziggy) and Pour que tu m’aimes encore.
When Dion sang All By Myself, she hit that famous high note with such ferocity and intensity she raised the cheering audience to their feet mid-song. Visibly moved, Dion said, “It feels so good to be home.”
Dion also seamlessly mixed the old with the new, singing Courage, the uplifting title track of the album that signals a new and exciting chapter for Dion since the death of her husband, René Angelil, in 2016.
“Do not be afraid to express your choices,” Dion encouraged the audience as she showcased her five daring wardrobe choices centre stage, notably a red gown by Yousef Aljasmi to open the show, and a bell-bottomed silver jumpsuit by Michael Costello during an extended concert-closing five-song medley that included a supersonic cover of Tina Turner’s River Deep, Mountain High and a French-language version of Lady Marmelade (in a thoughtful tip of the hat to Quebec music legend Nanette Workman).
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Céline returned for two encores, wearing a corseted white-tulle fabric gown by designer Zac Posen while singing a show-stopping version of My Heart Will Go On as dozens of tiny drones twinkled above Céline and the stage like fireflies. Visually and musically, a memorable piece of theatre.
With Courage and her first world tour in a decade, Dion has shown herself to be a most remarkable survivor of the great diva era of the 1990s.
AT A GLANCE
Céline Dion’s Courage World Tour headlines the Bell Centre for five additional performances, November 19, 21 and 22, and February 18 and 19, 2020. For tickets, visit evenko.ca.
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