You know all that stuff I said about Christina, well I take it all back.

            Ok, so I know Ive probably said some mean things about Christina Aguilera in the past, but Im officially taking it all back. I was one of the thousands of people lucky enough to see her and Justin Timberlake in their Justified & Stripped tour at the MCI Center in DC on August 25^th, and let me say that I now believe that anyone who picks on her has never seen her live.

            At first, I was skeptical about going to a concert, headlined by two former Mouse Club kids. I was expecting such a TRL experience.

The first thing I noticed when arriving at my seat, which happened to be right by the stage, was the amount of belly button and ass crack being displayed by the overwhelmingly synthetic fiber wearing, 90 pound, blonde highlighted, 15 year old girl audience. Everyone was like a little tiny Britney Spears clone. In all my time in DC, Ive never seen so many white girls in one room.

 Everyone had on their Justin stuff: t-shirts, hats, stickers, all the tacky ornaments of a pop sensation; but hardly anyone was givin props to Christina, as the teenagers say.

The lights went out, and the giant video screens came on. Through the flashing lights, and dutch angles, we could see Christina strapped to a chair and blindfolded. The intro from her Stripped album blared from the speakers, and she wiggled free and started ripping off her clothes. She turned, with her back to the camera, and said, just me. stripped. The stage lit up, and she came out.

My initial reaction was, wow, shes gorgeous, much hotter in person. She was wearing a tight black jumpsuit with the stomach cut out and red tape on the crotch and the ass. It sounds horrible, tacky, trashy, typical Aguilera, but once I saw the outfit in the context of the show, it wasnt so bad. My only complaint with her clothing for the night was that some of it seemed a bit ill-fitting, like her weight fluctuates and they cant figure out how to get her outfits to fit just right. Let me say that at no time did she look bad. In fact, her body looks so much better now that shes got a little meat on her bones. The dark hair, the tan, the new curves, it was all working for her.

She started the show off with Dirrty her hit, which Im sure, is played at strip clubs across the country. Her voice was amazing, she hit every note with perfection, sounding like the kind of professional entertainer Britney could never even dream of becoming. Whether it was slow ballads or rock inspired pop hits, she belted out every note like a pro. Absolutely incredible, her voice is downright amazing.

I read some other reviews of her show, and the main complaint was that it was too pop and not mature enough. People said Justins performance was more like a jazz club, and Christinas was like an over the top music video. Personally, I think this is a bunch of crap.

I saw Christina and Justin, and I would have to argue the opposite. Christinas show was much more simplified, often with less large-scale dance-offs, few stage distractions, and no-lip-syncing. Justin, on the other hand, had tons of lighting and pyro tricks, video accompaniment, and more dancers than a Lakers half time show. Funny thing was that his dancers were often way better than him; some damn near showed him up completely.

The entire time Justin was on, I kept thinking, wow, this would be impressive if I hadnt seen Michael Jackson do it ten years ago. That was when I figured out why Justin is so famous with teenagers. If you were born in 1990, you never saw Michael Jackson in his prime, and you think Justins act is original and amazing. However, if youre like the millions of us who were alive to see the King of Pop, all this seems like a cheap impersonation. Nothing against the kid, but hes just taking a performance that was excellent in the 80s and 90s and remixing it like P. Diddy. Thats not a talent.

Anyway, back to the lovely Christina. Watching her show made me feel bad for saying all those bad things about her. I watched her E! Special and shes gone through some tough times in her life too. Im glad shes the kind of person that can tell all her critics to take their comments and shove them up their ass. Maybe shes not the most elegant or classy singer around, but who gives a crap when shes got a voice like that?! From now on, I say, go Christina.