Enrique: Pretty guy turns out to be pretty lame

Geoff Carter

Tuesday, Aug. 22, 2000 | 9:11 a.m.

Two young men are born to fabulously attractive Latin parentage. One grows up to be an entertainer, and a robustly handsome fellow; the other grows up to be a writer, and quite possibly the least attractive man this side of Danny DeVito. We're talking mirror-crushing ugliness. I would use the term "coyote ugly" but I've no idea what it means.

Ah, but there's an irony: the ugly writer can sing, whereas Enrique Iglesias ... well, I've heard better, to put it politely. And wherever that ugly writer is right now (you didn't think it was me, did you?), I hope he fully appreciates the irony.

So what if Enrique Iglesias played to a capacity house last Saturday night, at the newly refurbished Aladdin Theatre for the Performing Arts? He got his hide tanned good by his backup singers, who sang circles around him. Take comfort, ugly Latino writer!

Even if that ugly scribe resents Enrique, I came to the Aladdin prepared to be entertained, at least. This isn't a poor man's Ricky Martin we're talking about; this is the son of Julio Iglesias, man. Attention must be paid. I paid about 45 minutes' worth before I started to get fidgety, and left the theater before I could really grow to resent his slight performance and wispy singing voice.

It's not that Iglesias' voice is bad, but it lacks depth, timbre: in other words, practically every tool his father used to build a career. Enrique almost sounds as if he's humming with the music -- that's fine for Moby, bad for someone who's declared himself a vocalist and stylist. If pressed for a comparison, I'd align him with Duran Duran vocalist Simon LeBon -- in his prime a sex symbol, with real stage presence and a singing voice thinner than the crust of a creme brulee.

Wisely, Iglesias fortified his slightness with an 11-piece band that included four backup singers to pump up the choruses. They did their best to whip him through a regrettable version of David Bowie's "Let's Dance," which Enrique halted and restarted just before the first chorus because the first attempt "sounded like (expletive)."

He then took his best hack at the Bowie hit, omitting most of the consonants. He punctuated every verse with "oh yeah," leaned backward to approximate dancing and idly fought off amorous teens garbed in halter tops.

"You like that song?" he asked the crowd. Yes, Enrique -- when performed by qualified personnel. It'll be interesting to hear how he performs the same songs 10 years from now, when he's grown into his instrument -- when he has to depend on his chops to get him over. By that point the girls will likely have turned their affections elsewhere -- maybe even to that grossly ugly writer, if he ever finishes his youth-appeal novel.

The Theatre for the Performing Arts, on the other hand, never dropped a note. The crisp acoustics have been markedly improved by a $20-million remodeling, and the theater not only sounds better than it did when it closed in 1997 but better than most of its local competition. Good to hear you again, Aladdin. You make daddy proud.