Review: Justin Timberlake dazzles and disappoints in St. Paul

Justin Timberlake sure is nervy.

How else do you explain him performing 11 songs from his 2024 album, “Everything I Thought It Was,” in concert Monday night at Xcel Energy Center even though hardly anyone bought or even cared about the album?

How else do you explain him eschewing his climactic bit by not standing on the edge of a tilted, floating monolith (attached by a harness) as he has done in dozens of other cities as an encore?

How else do you explain him tantalizing fans with a possible ‘N Sync reunion in 2023 and ’24 only to give one-song ‘N Sync live performances at two special events and record two reunion songs for his own projects?

The thing about Timberlake, though, is that he’s able to pull off these dubious stratagems with relatively little blowback. His fans are forgiving partly because he’s so charismatic (he’s a bit of a tease, a bit of a bad boy and a full-on charmer all in one) and partly because, three decades into his career, he’s still such a dazzling song-and-dance man that he can sell even the most meh material.

And that’s what he had to do Monday because tunes from “Everything I Thought It Was” accounted for 40% — a whopping 40%! — of his repertoire at the penultimate show on the North American leg of his Forget Tomorrow World Tour. (On a tour that started in April, he originally was slated to play in St. Paul on Halloween but had to postpone because of bronchitis and laryngitis. He apologized twice on Monday for the delay.)

Timberlake’s natural showmanship, deft musicianship and contagious energy saved an inflated, awkwardly paced yet sometimes exciting performance in front of 11,000 people.

The monolith (it doesn’t have a name but should) was the centerpiece of the show. The towering rectangular structure served as a video screen, LED lightbox and floating and spinning special effect. The images projected upon it were trippy, artful and fun, especially during “Drown” with a figure of Timberlake inside a huge water tank, struggling to escape. “You let me down,” he sang. “You didn’t even try to save me.”

Too bad the monolith didn’t appear during the encore as it had in other cities. (Look it up on YouTube.) Instead, Timberlake performed “Mirrors” on a satellite stage at the far end of the Wild hockey arena. In fact, that secondary stage played a key role in the concert because Timberlake performed eight numbers there, along with most of his band members.

The Tennessee Kids — an ensemble of eight musicians, three backup singers and five dancers — were also a big part of the show. The expansive musical arrangements afforded ample solo opportunities as well as space for Timberlake to exercise his considerable vocal chops (so supple, with a sweet falsetto) and limber dance moves, though he was less active than during his hyper-busy 2018 tour. Still, his dancers had quite an athletic workout around him.

Despite all the flash and pizzazz, Monday’s two-hour show had choppy pacing with too many pairings of irrelevant songs from “Everything I Thought It Was,” his sixth solo effort. He thought he was cool dropping F-bombs in “Flame,” making “Technicolor” musically monochromatic and inserting a thud in the gospel rocker “Sanctified.” Sorry, those were tired missteps, as was asking the fans to sing along to “Selfish,” the album’s single that he thought they would know. They didn’t.

Thankfully, Timberlake had plenty of hits in his signature mélange of R&B, funk, gospel, neo-disco and falsetto balladry to fill out the program. Highlights included the vocal exercise that is the emotional ballad “Cry Me a River,” the Michael Jackson-evoking “Rock Your Body” with a snippet of Chic’s “Good Times,” the banging and butt-shaking “SexyBack” and the celebrative “Can’t Stop the Feeling” from the 2016 “Trolls” movie that Timberlake dedicated to Calvin, 9, and Carmen, 7, siblings in the front row for whom he autographed their homemade signs.

For those hoping for any nods to Minnesota, the superstar from Memphis made no reference to performing at the Super Bowl in Minneapolis’ U.S. Bank Stadium in 2018 or partying at Prince’s Paisley Park that year to launch his other dud of an album, “Man of the Woods” (he performed only one selection from that disc on Monday). In his 2018 St. Paul show, Timberlake gave a shoutout to Prince, one of his heroes, but not this time. On Monday, he didn’t even mention his wife, Jessica Biel, who is from Ely, Minn.

At 44, Timberlake — who’s been performing since he was 11 and went solo from hit boy band ‘N Sync in 2002 — remains the most well-rounded entertainer of his generation (loved his work on “Saturday Night Live”). That’s one of the reasons why his audience of mostly millennials has stuck with him for 30 years. But as talented as he is, he’s not necessarily the best judge of his own work. Just like “SNL” needs guru Lorne Michaels to say yeah or nay, every artist — no matter how big a superstar — needs an editor, director or producer.

Opening was DJ Andrew Hypes, who warmed up the enthusiastic concertgoers with an hour of various oldies including Journey’s “Don’t Stop Believin,’ ” Prince’s “Let’s Go Crazy” and ‘N Sync’s “Bye Bye Bye.” And, in a savvy move, barely a minute passed between the DJ’s exit and Timberlake’s entrance.