Pittsburgh audiences haven't gotten to know Ms. Spears very well over the years. She has been here only three times, and one of those was an encore of the same tour.
Here's a look at her touring history:
1999: The "... Baby One More Time" Tour was Britney's first big road trip, but the closest it came to Pittsburgh was Hershey. She performed eight songs from her debut album, along with a medley of covers including Madonna's "Vogue" and "Material Girl," Janet Jackson's "Black Cat" and "Nasty," and Journey's "Open Arms."
2000: Britney tempted millennial catastrophe with the Crazy 2K Tour, just before the release of "Oops, I Did it Again," and survived with only a few charges of lip-synching. The tour didn't step on Christina's home turf either, but she did make her debut on the summer tour (Aug. 21 at the Post-Gazette Pavilion). She wore her tear-away schoolgirl uniform, her Barbarella outfit, a cowgirl costume. ... According to the PG review, it was a spectacle to rival Kiss and "with tight choreography, excellent staging and Spears exuding natural charisma, almost every song was fleshed out, as it were, like its own little video." The sold-out show went so well, she returned a few weeks later on Sept. 15.
2001: Mellon Arena, Nov. 2, was the second stop on her Dream Within a Dream Tour promoting her third album "Britney," which hadn't hit the streets yet. She dressed as a ballerina in a music box, wore a low-cut space-girl outfit, and a flowing scarf and not much else for "I'm a Slave 4 U." That didn't stop her from saying during an advance teleconference: "I think it's ... very flattering that such young kids look up to me because the innocence of them is a really beautiful thing."
2004:The Onyx Hotel Tour, promoting "In the Zone," drew controversy for the orgiastic dances for "Touch of My Hand" and "Breathe on Me." Pittsburghers had to travel to Philly or Toronto for a taste.
2007:During the craziest part of her life (so far), between the divorce from Kevin Federline and stints in rehab, Britney did 15-minutes sets on a six-show mini-tour of House of Blues, called the M+M's Tour. There was no live singing.
2009:"Circus" Tour starts March 3 in New Orleans. It's still going.
First Published: March 26, 2009, 8:00 a.m.
