Alicia Keys

Justin Timberlake's benefit for Shriners Hospitals at Mandalay Bay last fall offered side-by-side comparisons of two hopeful futures for pop music -- and perhaps for the future of Las Vegas as well.

Alicia Keys and Taylor Swift performed one after the other on that night in October, each proving a pop diva can still write and play her own songs and communicate them with a heartfelt presence which runs deeper than choreographed dance moves.

Both stars are too young and busy to contemplate Celine-like residencies, so the Strip must take them when an occasional tour stop permits. Keys returns to the Mandalay Bay Events Center today for a full-length showcase that -- based on reports from other tour stops -- has more than its share of arena-concert glitz, but keeps the spectacle grounded in honest emotion.

"I have to say this is my favorite tour I've done yet period. And it should be like that because I feel like I'm getting more experience and just learning more of my comfort zone," the 29-year-old Keys said in a conference call with reporters last week.

Cameras are rolling on and offstage for a documentary about the tour driven by the singer's fourth album, "The Element of Freedom."

"It's so important to me because it just represents such a brand new time in my life, and it represents such a certain growth and a certain confidence that just has been really great to experience," she says. "This show is one I'd really like people to be able to hold and have and own."

Driving home the album title, the concert carries "a theme about liberation, about finding yourself, about finding your own way, about letting go of anything that may be holding you back, about self-love, about possibilities," she says.

The singer escapes from a cage at the beginning and plays synthesizer and a few edgier cuts -- such as the James Bond theme "Another Way to Die" -- along with piano ballad mainstays such as "I Ain't Got You."

"The thing that's amazing about music is it represents all people's lives and different times in their lives," Keys says. "I have no idea sometimes what these songs represent to people, and the memories they remember, or the things they were able to overcome, or those feelings and emotions that it gave them peace for. Whatever the case, I've heard millions of stories and I love them. That's what's so amazing."

The native New Yorker has played piano since age 7 but was introduced to pop in a big way at age 3 with the Jacksons "Victory Tour."
"The first concert I ever attended was Michael Jackson, and it was I think like the reunion tour or something because he had all his brothers with him, and it was like a big, huge deal," she recalls of the 1984 moment.

"I remember I was really young, and my mother, and there were all these ambulances everywhere, and I was like, 'Mommy, who's sick?' I didn't understand the fact that just in a few hours like, grown men would be fainting at this concert. It was just incredible to see that level of performance so young. That was a great first concert to go to."

The tour also gives fans a chance to text donations to Keys' Keep A Child Alive charity, which provides medicines and vaccines to Africa, India and other distressed regions. After she performs in South Africa for the World Cup in June, she will take five contest-winning fans on a tour of African clinics and orphanages.

The trip, she predicts, "will change their lives as much as it changed mine."

Contact reporter Mike Weatherford at mweatherford@ reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0288.