Jennifer Lopez and Enrique Iglesias are study in contrasts
BOSTON At around 6 one recent evening, Jennifer Lopez and Enrique Iglesias sat in the Boston Celtics' locker room disguised as ordinary people. The two stars were gathered to discuss their co-headlining summer tour before a show at the TD Garden, and their low-key outfits she in gray sweats and flip-flops, he in jeans and a T-shirt spoke to the behind-the-scenes grind of life on the road.
Two hours later, Iglesias hit the stage for his portion of the concert wearing what appeared to be the same clothes. Lopez, however, had transformed into her showbiz self: Entering in a cherry picker over the heads of eight male dancers in top hats and tails, the singer, actress and just-retired"American Idol"judge was in a sparkly skin-tight bodysuit. And a fur cap. And a white feather number that couldn't decide whether it was a skirt or a cape.
"Jennifer's show is like a Broadway musical," Iglesias said backstage with a laugh. "And I run on a budget."
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Numbers-motivated or not, the difference in presentation reflects the creative contrast built into this six-week trek, which stops Saturday night at Anaheim's Honda Center before shows next Thursday and Friday at Staples Center. One of two scheduled shows at the Honda ! was canceled, but publicists for the tour decline to comment on why. Both artists occupy the uppermost echelon of Latin pop, with plenty of English-language hits his "Hero" and "I Like It," her "On the Floor" and "Jenny From the Block" between them.
Yet each exercises that stardom uniquely. Lopez offers costume changes and elaborate dance sequences, like the one set in a boxing ring during her current single, "Goin' In." She's selling high-gloss fantasy, essentially, while Iglesias the son of the Spanish crooner Julio Iglesias works to demystify his good looks and his global celebrity; he delivers love songs directly to fans he's brought on-stage and tempers his up-tempo tunes with an offhand musicality.
"Enrique is really a singer's singer," said John Halterman, program director at L.A.'s KXOL-FM (96.3). "And Jennifer is a performer's performer. It's almost comparable to Christina Aguilera and Britney Spears."
They have their own reasons for touring, as well. For Lopez, 43, the dates with Iglesias part of a world tour that will keep her out through late November represent an opportunity to reassert herself as a musician after her split with "American Idol," which she made public in July.
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"'Idol' was a catalyst for all this movement in my life," she said in Boston, her feet propped on a low table in front of her. "Talking to the contestants and sharing what I've learned over the years perform! ing live ! and singing in the studio it got me back to those things. All of a sudden I realized I knew all this stuff." She laughed. "I'm a professional! And as fun as it was to take a break from everything and do that for a little while, this is where I belong. I'm so much more at ease onstage than I was sitting in that chair."
Last year, Lopez released her first studio album since 2007, "Love?" (In retrospect that question mark may have foreshadowed the singer's subsequent separation from her third husband, Marc Anthony.) It sold only moderately well but spawned the hit single "On the Floor," which reached No. 3 on Billboard's Hot 200 Lopez's highest chart placement in nearly a decade.
Produced by RedOne and featuring Pitbull, the song also paved the way for two new tracks "Goin' In" and "Dance Again" included on a greatest-hits set released July 20. Both surround Lopez's lightweight voice with the pounding Euro-house beats that now dominate Top 40 pop.
"You have to be in the moment," Lopez said, crediting her and Anthony's 4-year-old twins with helping to keep her current. ("My daughter loves Justin Bieber," she reported.) "If you get stuck in the '90s, you'll just be back there trying to re-create something."
It's a mind-set that's also served Iglesias, 37, well. Famous first for lush ballads not unlike his father's, he's gone bigger and bolder in recent years, most successfully in his own collaboration with RedOne and Pitbull, the 2010 stadium-rave hit "I Like It."
Over rum-and-Diet-Cokes in his dressing room after the Boston show, Iglesias said the song "saved [his] career," adding that he left one record comp! any for a! nother after the first balked at the newfound intensity of "I Like It."
"Ninety-nine percent of people thought I was out of my mind when I did that song with Enrique," said RedOne, who's also written and produced for Lady Gaga and Nicki Minaj. "But it shows that a superstar can always come back with the right song and the right sound."
Indeed, two years after its release, "I Like It" feels less like an 11th hour rescue than simply another step in what might be Latin pop's most consistent career. "With Enrique, what can you say?" asked KXOL's Halterman. "People just love him."
That seemed to be the case at the TD Garden, where Iglesias' audience cheered a performance that opened and closed with the hard-thumping dance song known on the radio as "Tonight (I'm Lovin' You)."
Although his charisma and physical charm speak for themselves, Iglesias claimed he couldn't explain how he creates that connection with his fans one that's peaked every night for years during "Hero," in which he "kisses a girl he doesn't know on the mouth," as Lopez described it with apparent amazement.
Iglesias shrugged. "I know some of them," he said.
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