What Do You Think of the Jordin Sparks/Britney Spears Tour?

Recently, it was announced that Jordin Sparks and Britney Spears would be touring together.  Actually, I guess it would be more accurate to say that Jordin is opening for Britney and the pairing felt odd and weird to me in about a million ways.

The first thought I had is the obvious and ironic one.  The American Idol winner has been pretty vocal about her belief that people should wait until they are married to have sex.  She wears a purity ring and, although she admits that it’s sometimes difficult, she seems determined to maintain her values – she even directed some very pointed comments at Russell Brand last year when he hosted the 2008 MTV Video Music Awards. 

Meanwhile, it’s pretty clear that Britney is no virgin and the ironic part is that she used to make the very same claims as Jordin does now.  Ms Spears used to swear she was a virgin and even had people offering her huge amounts of money so that they could be the first to take her to bed.  It was pretty outrageous, actually.  As it turns out, none of that was true but was a marketing ploy to make Britney seem more wholesome (it worked!).  I believed Britney and I believe Jordin so… who knows?  Maybe they have more in common than I thought.

Another interesting thing is that Britney obviously lip-syncs during her performances.  I’m so glad that I didn’t pay money to see her in concert!  I’m happy she’s making a huge comeback and all but it would have been nice to see her make an effort to actually sing.

Jordin, on the other hand, appears to be singing live in all of the concert videos I’ve found of her (feel free to tell me otherwise).  In fact, it was her live performances that got her the votes on American Idol. 

So… unless Jordin is going to start mouthing along to a track, the audience is going to get treated to a real, live voice and then a canned one.  I’m not going to even get into how different their choreography is going to be.  Weird concert experience, if you ask me…

Here are the dates when Jordin and Britney will be sharing a stage:

• August 24 New York, NY Madison Square Garden
• August 25 New York, NY Madison Square Garden
• August 26 New York, NY Madison Square Garden
• August 29 Boston, MA TD Garden
• September 1 Orlando, FL Amway Arena
• September 2 Miami, FL American Airlines Arena
• September 4 Atlanta, GA Philips Arena
• September 5 Greensboro, NC Greensboro Coliseum
• September 8 Detroit, MI The Palace of Auburn Hills
• September 9 Chicago, IL Allstate Arena
• September 11 Des Moines, IA Wells Fargo Arena
• September 12 Grand Forks, ND Alerus Center
• September 15 Tulsa, OK BOK Center
• September 16 Houston, TX Toyota Center
• September 18 Dallas, TX American Airlines Center
• September 21 El Paso, TX Don Haskins Center
• September 23 Los Angeles, CA STAPLES Center
• September 24 San Diego, CA San Diego Sports Arena
• September 26 Las Vegas, NV Mandalay Bay Events Center
• September 27 Las Vegas, NV Mandalay Bay Events Center

images: Bauer-Griffin