Pop Music : A Jackson Ticket to Ecstasy

Freddie Jackson must be the most unlikely sex god since Barry White mumbled his way onto the charts in the ‘70s. While falling short of White’s fabled heft, Jackson’s Buddha-like size and countenance wouldn’t seem to say “stud love image to millions.” But to his female fans, his bedroom eyes and falsetto sighs are the ticket to ecstasy. There was no shortage of screams and swoons from those fans at his first of two sold-out shows at Anaheim’s Celebrity Theatre on Friday.

Drawing from his four hit albums, Jackson’s hourlong set seemed to concentrate on a specific mood of romance. It wasn’t the rapture of first being smitten, nor the urgency of attaining love, nor its enduring qualities, nor even the full heat of physical love. Rather, like White’s waterbed opuses, Jackson’s languid, pillowy ballads seemed to draw on a mood of post-coital torpor, those moments between “do me”--as he pleaded in “Tasty Love”--and “Do Me Again,” the title track of his current album.

Jackson displayed a remarkably nimble, though somewhat glib, voice, continually swooping and scatting through ornate melodic curlicues. He and his band cooked up a persuasive dance groove on “Jam Tonight” and a solid simmer on the Marvin Gaye-influenced “Rock Me Tonight.” All told, though, Al Green singing about church is still more seductive than Jackson singing about bedrooms.

Opener En Vogue may have a dubious origin--the four model-perfect singers were assembled and packaged by a production team--but they sing as if they grew up in the projects together. In their too-short 40-minute set, they came off like a Supremes for the ‘90s with matching outfits and dance steps, but funky, sultry, lighthearted and democratic, with all four sharing lead vocals. Their set sparkled with solid songs, rich harmonies and heated lead vocals.