As calamitous comebacks go, Justin Timberlake ’s latest chapter feels particularly cursed. Not only did his sixth LP, Everything I Thought It Was , receive a critical drubbing on release back in March, but his public image has taken a battering too – first from unflattering revelations in Britney Spears ’ bestselling memoir , and then as a result of June’s much memed arrest for driving while intoxicated . And yet, if Timberlake really is as troubled as the gossip would have you believe, he was hiding it well on the second sell-out London date of his Forget Tomorrow World Tour.
Moving with the effortless ease of a veteran performer, the former *NSYNC star put on an impressively tight show with the support of his backing band, The Tennessee Kids. Featuring a roaming horn section and three dynamic backing vocalists alongside the traditional band set-up, they proved almost as light on their feet as the dancers helping the 43-year-old revive the iconic moves of Rock Your Body and the rest. Timberlake often took his turn in the ensemble too, leading the band on guitar during Say Something, and standing to hammer out the staccato organ riff during Señorita.
Rather than delivering straight run-throughs of the classics, they frequently had fun with arrangements, interpolating Chic’ s Good Times into Rock Your Body and George Michael ’s Careless Whisper into the climax of What Goes Around. Meanwhile, My Love was expanded into an ambitious R&B epic, complete with classical.