At GM Place on Thursday, March 22

Note to Nelly: MC Hammer called, and he wants his pants back. For some reason, Victown's golden child decided to open her show in designer shitcatchers. Maybe she wanted the enormity of her crotch gathers to reflect the size of her production, which included a full band, four dancers, and three big screens. Clearly, our little songbird has gone big-time. And apparently so has her ass, which I personally think is great. Celebrating her ample backside couldn't send a more positive body-image message to the all those impressionable preteens that idolize her so. You got curves, so work it, girl.

Speaking of her adoring female fans, the GM Place extravaganza also marked the first all-ages concert I've attended where nary a jailbait was dressed like a ho. It was virtually a skank-free event–refreshingly so. Musically, though, it had its shares of highs and lows, and not all of them were Furtado's doing.

However, the first creative blunder was all Furtado. B.C.'s hometown hero did quite the botch job on Gnarls Barkley's "Crazy" by bringing it down to an almost country-and-western backbeat, then singing it through her nasal cavity. As a result, she sounded less like a chart-topping pop star paying props to arguably the best song of 2006, and more like Tammy Wynette wasted on 'ludes.

And there were other rank tributes where that came from. While Furtado was changing into her third outfit about halfway through the show, her backup singer stunk up the stage with a Star Search-like version of "SexyBack". This spectacle temporarily reduced the concert to a karaoke nightclub act.

Another disappointment was when Furtado got down and dirty with "I'm Like a Bird". We know she's all "loose" now, but would it have killed her to honour the wide-eyed appeal of her career-launching trip-pop hit? For this portion of the show, Furtado performed in painted-on white jeans that seemed to limit her mobility to such an extent that when someone threw a pair of CK skivvies on stage, the packed Portuguese sausage struggled to bend over and pick them up. She eventually had to abort her mission, as it was a physical impossibility in her skintight denims–and so was dancing, for that matter (suddenly her shitcatchers made much more sense).

Aside from this wardrobe malfunction and a couple of hurtin' covers, Furtado and her posse did a bang-up job of keeping the energy high for most of the 90-minute performance. For example, free soccer balls were flying out into the crowd left, right, and centre as she worked her European football anthem, "Força"–a stunt young spectators seem to lap up.

Predictably, the highlight of the set was "Promiscuous". With Hogtown rapper Saukrates filling in for Timbaland, she stayed true to the sexually charged dance number. It wasn't only the most pumpin' tune, it was also her best vocal delivery of the night. Another commendable aspect of her showmanship was the fact that she didn't cop any diva-tude the entire evening, proving once again that she is indeed a great role model for all Tiger Beat subscribers–"Promiscuous" lyrics notwithstanding.