The First Lady was at the Verizon Center last night, daughters and Secret Service in tow, to witness Miley Cyrus‘ first tour under her own name rather than the Hannah Montana brand. Many more photos after the jump (click on any photo for a larger version).

Note: these photos may not be republished elsewhere.

Metro Station, featuring Miley’s half-brother Trace Cyrus, opened:

The fact that Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band last played in D.C. just this past May didn’t seem to put a damper on the reception that the Boss and friends received when they hit the stage at the Verizon Center. After the jump and at the full gallery, check out some images from the initial moments of last night’s show.

Full gallery here.

Bruce Springsteen fans have a lot invested in the Jersey man. They may have had a lot more invested in last night’s show at the Verizon Center. Tickets sold out in minutes. Then a company sold tickets they didn’t quite have. Anyone who had a ticket was lucky. This was no mere Dad Rock.

And Springsteen doesn’t have mere fans. Every other dad wore a faded Boss shirt from an old tour. I’ve never seen mom jeans rock so hard during the trips to the back catalog. At this point, Springsteen doesn’t even have to sing “Born to Run,” the audience—even a D.C. audience—did more than a fine job screaming about Jersey desperation, springing from cages out on Highway 9. At least that’s what I saw/heard from my nosebleed seat. At this point, the obsessives are the ones willing to wait in lines for tickets, and refresh furiously at the Ticketmaster website. Last night, Springsteen seemed to acknowledge the Backstreet freaks in his midst. On this tour, he’s started taking requests. Last night, the Verizon center went epileptic when he picked “Blinded By the Light” despite the song’s hilarious backstory.

Can I just set aside my indie rock credentials for a second? That blinded-by-the-light moment was awesome.

OK. That felt good.

Nils admitted that this tour is being judged by the diehards. By the time I got home, the setlist had been posted online. The Springsteen freaks camped on the message boards are now judging without mercy. And they’ve deemed the D.C. crowd unworthy. This fanboy shit is pretty hilarious.

One commenter, “Bossfan77,” wrote that the audience was a ‘complete joke,” grousing that: “My section, 101 was sitting during Kittys Back , like they had never heard the song before…”

Much chatter, of course, followed:

*”I wouldn’t call it embarrassing, but I agree it was strange to see so many people planted in their seats for so much of the show. As sweet as the band was, it was a little weird and off-putting to realize that a lot of people in the audience, maybe more so than normal, didn’t know WTF was happening on stage. Section 214 was sitting as well (I was at the top, with the two other people who were not–literally, there may have been five or six people in the whole section standing up for Kitty’s), almost every section I could see had a lot of people seated for Kitty’s, and it felt like a lot of people didn’t know the songs. I chatted with a few people after the show who thought he’d played a lot of covers. I mean, I think people enjoyed themselves regardless, but it was a strange vibe.”

*”you can thank the scalpers and ticketmaster. It is pure bullshit that real fans should be shut out of a show in their own backyard because of the way the majority of the DC tickets were distributed. Pure bullshit.”

*”Were you the guy yelling at all of us in the metro because no one would sing with you? :-/ sorry
I believe you said ‘the recession isn’t THAT bad, people!!!’. I laughed.”

*”EXACTLY!!! THE FACT THAT IT WAS THE TOUGHEST TICKET IN TOWN TO GET, AND IM SURROUNDED BY A BUNCH OF D-BAGS, THAT DONT EVEN KNOW THE SONGS, BUT PAYED OUT THERE ASS FOR THE TICKETS!!! C’MON!!! LETS GET THIS TICKET SELLING STUFF RIGHT!!!”

There are of course more comments.

Yeah, that’s right. Had enough of SXSW coverage and all that damn hipster music? Armed with photo pass and camera and ready and willing to destroy any last vestige of my music-snob credibility, I joined thousands of fans, parents and curious observers for the biggest concert in town last night, Britney Spears and the Pussycat Dolls at the Verizon Center.

Photos of the Pussycat Dolls are in this Flickr gallery; for contractual reasons I have to post the Britney Spears photos right here on the blog, so you’ll find a huge number of photos after the jump, as well as some brief thoughts on the little bit of the show that I saw.

Given that listening to a Britney Spears concert is no different than listening to a Britney Spears CD—no music is actually played live as far as I can tell—there is obviously a huge emphasis placed on visuals. This concert was a monstrously over-the-top spectacle, even for the three songs I was allowed to photograph. A 15-minute circus act (acrobats, dancers etc) preceded the show proper, which kicked off with Spears being lowered from the rafters. It only got more ridiculous from there. This was one hell of a well-produced show, with 20 dancers onstage (or in the air) with Spears at all times, all kinds of props, pyro, video interludes, costume changes between every song, a bizarre S&M theme for the first couple songs… the works.

It’s arguable whether or not things were ever different, but for several years now (especially since Blackout) Spears has been little more than a delivery mechanism for other people’s songs. With her vocals auto-tuned into robotic oblivion, the only thing remaining for her to contribute are her dance moves. At least for what I saw, she was actually upstaged in that department by The Pussycat Dolls, who seemed more energetic, their choreography less dependent on gimmicks and elaborate props. This is kind of amazing considering that they were absolutely awful when I saw them open for Christina Aguilera a couple years ago—yes, I have a bit of history of going to concerts like this.

In fact, I’ll quote my review of that show, equally applicable to this one even though I only saw a bit of it:

Overall, this show was something that was definitely worth seeing once, if only for the ridiculous, gaudy spectacle of it all… It was really fascinating to see major-label corporate music in all its “glory” — I’ll always be much more comfortable in a dingy rock club or a tiny jazz club, but seeing what the majority of the country thinks of when they think of “live music” was quite the eye-opener.

(A final aside: one criticism people level at current-day Spears is that she doesn’t look like she did 10 years ago, and that’s one I vehemently disagree with. Of course she doesn’t look like she’s 18 anymore. She actually looks like a real person now, fit but not model-skinny, which is surely a healthier example for the mobs of teenage girls attending her shows.)

Click on any of the thumbnails below for a full version. Please do not re-use these photos.

(Full set of photos at Flickr.)

In my City Lights pick of The Sword at Rock & Roll Hotel, I didn’t really have particularly glowing things to say about Metallica. Like many metalheads, I’m a big fan of their early material, up to and actually including the Black Album, but they completely lost me after that. Death Magnetic was clearly better than any of their other recent work, but at this point I’ve moved on to other kinds of metal and was left largely unmoved by it.

Still, last night’s show proved one thing: they’ve still got the knack for performance. I didn’t have a ticket so I couldn’t stay past the first three songs that I was allowed to photograph, but from what I saw and heard, this was probably one hell of a show. Energy levels through the roof (the stage was in the round with eight mics set up in different spots, and all the band members were constantly bouncing around between them), and they sounded great. The first two songs they played were the first two songs off of Death Magnetic, and while I’m not crazy about either of them, the performances were pretty much flawless.

The crowd was into it too, all 20,000 of them – the arena was sold out all the way to the upper decks. Dinosaurs past their prime maybe, but people do love a good dinosaur, especially when they’re still this vicious.

(Full set of photos at Flickr.)

Which isn’t to say that the Who in its current incarnation lacks vim, vigor, or even cheek…just that the guys who came to prominence as purveyors of auto-destructive art now seem more intent on self-preservation.

Townshend was the star of the evening—his voice gruff, his guitar crisp, his stage presence spry and occasionally airborne.  He also made time for some typically inscrutable bons mots between songs:

On cannibalism: “Someone took the child.  They’re gonna boil her in a pot and make soup out of her.”

On the election: “We hope you get what you want tomorrow.  And we’re here to share in your misery.”

On disco: “Back then disco was huge.  It was pretty great, but it was ubiquitous, and we thought rock n roll was gonna get swallowed up by it.”

“That didn’t happen,” he said after a beat, to predictably massive applause.  (And the band launched into—what else?—”Disco Sister.”)

Elsewhere, “5:15″ got a powerful workout, including some very horn-like guitar duets from Townsend and his brother Simon; “Love, Reign O’er Me” soared broodingly; and the extended jam in “My Generation” was beautifully propulsive.  The only real disappointment was “Gettin’ In Tune,” a ditty on band-audience synchronicity and a favorite of mine.  Monday’s rendition worked until what should have been the coolest bit: the Daltrey-Townshend harmony on “there’s a symphony that I hear in your heart / sends my head a-reeling.”  Daltrey entered a good four bars early, sending the band into a minor tailspin (from which Townsend quickly rescued them).  It was an awkward moment—if amply redeemed—and I was left nursing a weird sympathy for the lead singer.

Oh, and while we’re picking nits: the mix.  Townshend’s guitar approach depends so much on chordal isolation (cf. turnaround in “Won’t Get Fooled Again”), which in turn requires a rhythmic space that the current six-piece lineup doesn’t preserve.  Instead we get a wall of sound and a sporadically muddled version of the classic Who attack.  Also: Palladino needs a treblier bass if he really wants to capture that Entwistle sound.

But, you know, whatever.  These guys soldiered through over two hours of (yes) maximum R&B, hitting all the right spots in their catalog without seeming to sag too hard.  For sexagenarians, that takes balls and blood sugar.

“I feel like I’ve been through ten rounds with Mike Tyson,” Daltrey said at the end.  “But it’s been a pleasure.”

Below: setlist and a very special slideshow of photographs by Brian Reed.

Setlist

• “Can’t Explain”
• “The Seeker”
• “Relay”
• “Fragments”
• “Who Are You”
• “Behind Blue Eyes”
• “Real Good-Lookin’ Boy”
• “Disco Sister”
• “Baba O’Riley”
• “Gettin’ in Tune”
• “Eminence Front”
• “5:15″
• “Love, Reign O’er Me”
• “Won’t Get Fooled Again”
• “My Generation”
• “Naked Eye”

First encore

• Tommy medley: “Pinball Wizard” -> “Amazing Journey” -> “Sparks” -> “See Me, Feel Me” -> “Listening to You”

Second encore

• “Tea & Theatre”