For R&B;’s Usher, Ego Is Still Instrumental

R&B; heartthrob Usher says he called his latest album “8701” to reflect the growth and maturity he achieved between 1987, when he launched his career, and 2001, when “8701” came out. But when it comes to the art of seduction, on which he’s built his career as a modern-day Romeo, his attitude is still primarily “my way.”

Nobody expects Shakespeare from today’s pop masters of romance, but it didn’t take a master in Jungian analysis to catch the overriding self-centeredness at the core of his Evolution 8701 Tour during its stop Saturday night at Verizon Wireless Amphitheater in Irvine.

Songs were drawn by and large from “8701” and from his 1997 breakthrough album “My Way,” which have sold nearly 8 million copies combined in the U.S., so clearly he’s in sync with his audience.

The predominantly female crowd at Saturday’s show didn’t even mind the rampant egocentricity when he sang “I want someone who makes me feel good in love” in “I Need a Girl,” his recent collaborative hit with Sean “P. Diddy” Combs and rapper Loon.

Sure, that was written by Combs, not Usher, but there’s a disturbing lack of any sense of another individual in most of the love songs Usher does write.

That’s because he celebrates the physical expression of love far more than the spiritual or relational aspects. At 23 he may be a full-fledged adult, but his material still carries a large dose of adolescent point of view.

On the other hand, Usher Raymond IV is a skilled singer and a tremendous dancer, and he could stand to give the latter even more stage time. The choreography was sporadically dazzling, and in a brief solo number near the end of the show, he suddenly pulled together a routine hinting that he might give Prince or Michael Jackson of yore a run for their money.

The staging of several numbers also gave any amateur psychologists on hand plenty to mull on. His treatment of “U Remind Me” got a new spin as he lamented memories of a departed love getting in the way of proceeding with a new relationship.

On the recording he comes off attractively vulnerable; onstage singing the song to each of the four lithe female dancers he partnered successively, he appeared fickle at best, calculating at worst.

On the wardrobe front, he changed outfits as often as Cher or Britney Spears, only to peel most of them off time and again, something the women watching never found repetitive.

Rap duo Nas, however, did suffer from repetitiveness in its 30-minute set that preceded Usher due to nearly identical tempos in several numbers, while opener Faith Evans stopped just short of medley syndrome with a string of two-minute snippets of nine songs.

Only at the end did she let one song unfold, and it made all the difference as she at last took enough time not only to create musical momentum, but then to build it to a peak that exploded into a great gospel workout.