{"id":112119,"date":"2025-11-02T23:32:10","date_gmt":"2025-11-02T23:32:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/112119\/"},"modified":"2025-11-02T23:32:10","modified_gmt":"2025-11-02T23:32:10","slug":"nicole-scherzinger-mixes-sunset-blvd-pussycat-dolls-songs-review","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/112119\/","title":{"rendered":"Nicole Scherzinger Mixes ‘Sunset Blvd.,’ Pussycat Dolls Songs: Review"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tIf only we could hear Norma Desmond rise up and sing: Don\u2019t cha wish your girflriend, that little tart Betty Schaefer, was hot like me?<\/p>\n

\n\tThat does not happen in Nicole Scherzinger<\/a>\u2018s current run of shows, which included a diverting stop Thursday night at Walt Disney Concert Hall<\/a> in downtown L.A. The show tunes stayed in their corner, and the Pussycat Dolls oldies stayed in theirs. It was a show with a slightly split personality, with musical theater numbers dominating the first three-quarters and the flashy pop perpetrated by her ex-girl-group taking over the last stretch. <\/p>\n

\n\tBut it didn\u2019t feel like an impossibly wide chasm. Even as Scherzinger sang two bravura songs from the stage musical that brought her back into the limelight in a big way, \u201cSunset Blvd.<\/a>,\u201d you were reminded that that Broadway\/West End show was rejiggered some when she was starring in it so that Gloria Swanson was a very distant memory, and so that you had to think of Norma Desmond not as a hag but as being a woman of a certain age who is very much H-O-T-T-O-G-O. And it worked.<\/p>\n

\n\tMeanwhile, there\u2019s the F.O.M.O. that the L.A. theater community has suffered from not getting a local transfer of Scherzinger\u2019s run in \u201cSunset\u201d on Broadway. Of course, many Angelenos made their way east to catch her in that Tony-winning turn in late 2024 and early \u201925. \u201cYou were everything in \u2018Sunset\u2019!\u201d shouted the man in front of me, which is exactly the right thing to shout at a diva performance where everyone is just a little too mature to call out anything about mothering. So the full house was probably made up of about one-third jet-setters who already knew how spectacularly her \u201cWith One Look\u201d would go, and two-thirds less-privileged locals who until now had only been able to guess it.<\/p>\n

\n\tAs the \u201cSunset\u201d segment unfolded in the middle of her concert\u2019s second act (the show that is \u201cwhat\u2019s gotten me here today,\u201d as she told the audience), \u201cWith One Look\u201d was really just the warm-up, though. The number that followed, \u201cAs If We Never Said Goodbye,\u201d was the money song, the one that seemed redolent of Barbra Streisand\u2019s own cover of the Andrew Lloyd Webber neo-classic. Throughout it, I sensed a few of the people around me who seemed eager for the song to end \u2014 not because they really wanted Scherzinger to stop singing, but because they were literally jittery on the edge of their seats, barely able to hold off jumping up for the inevitable standing ovation. I felt their twitchiness. <\/p>\n

\n\tAnd not so very long after that peak, gown-clad classiness: the Pussycat Dolls\u2019 \u201cButtons,\u201d and the unveiling of a slinky, button-less catsuit to match. Because why not? Scherzinger clearly is favoring her stage-actress era nowadays, but she\u2019s still got the goods to indulge in some throwback choreo, or cardio, from back in the day.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tNicole Scherzinger at Walt Disney Concert Hall, Oct. 30, 2025.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tTimothy Norris\/Los Angeles Philharmonic<\/p>\n

\n\tThis isn\u2019t a full tour for the singer, but the last of three shows taking place in some of the world\u2019s most storied venues \u2014 the Royal Albert Hall, Carnegie Hall and now (the day after she was honored at Variety\u2019s Power of Women L.A. event) Disney Hall. It\u2019s easy to imagine her taking it further on the road, if she doesn\u2019t book another theater gig, or doing a residency. Would it draw a wider split of fans, in other cities, who might be attracted to come only for the Dolls stuff or only for a night of standards? Possibly, but she would likely leave everyone ultimately pleased, either way.<\/p>\n

\n\tThursday\u2019s show certainly announced its primary intentions right at the start, with Scherzinger doing a faithful rendition of \u201cDon\u2019t Rain on My Parade.\u201d That\u2019s a bold way for a singer who hasn\u2019t been known primarily for being in the theater arena that long to start off with \u2014 maybe too bold, in declaring that Streisand\u2019s turf is her terra firma, too. Her version was terrific, for what it was, but not an especially imaginative or reinvented pick. From there, she got a little looser with the perennial Halloween\/R&B favorite \u201cI Put a Spell on You,\u201d giving good growliness. \u201cDiamonds Are Forever\u201d was a great choice of movie song to include (Variety having previously declared it the best Bond theme of all time<\/a>), and it was wise that she paid proper homage to the originator, but the issue remains of how difficult it is to out-Bassey Shirley Bassey. (At least she is a dozen times more capable of nailing it than poor, miscast Doja Cat at this year\u2019s Oscars.)<\/p>\n

\n\tFinally Scherzinger arrived at the first song truly associated with her, with some chan-toozy banter to set it up: \u201cY\u2019all look so good, I think I might \u2018stickwitu\u2019 forever. That reminds me of a song\u2026\u201d Hey, us too. The diversion to Pussycat hit territory was only a momentary one for the moment, veritably a trailer for the show\u2019s finale. But there was something about it that seemed to put her on a surer footing, even as she returned to the stage and film perennials. A medley of Sondheim\u2019s \u201cLosing My Mind\u201d and \u201cNot a Day Goes By,\u201d which seem to have become conjoined in the interpreter mindset somewhere around the turn of the century, offered a good teaser for the mind-losing possibilities of the \u201cSunset\u201d material to come later.<\/p>\n

\n\tAnd then, for her pre-intermission closer, Scherzinger tackled \u201cCabaret\u2019s\u201d greatest number, \u201cMaybe This Time,\u201d the patron saint of songs for losers everywhere. She wouldn\u2019t fit into a modern \u201cCabaret\u201d production where the leading lady has to play it like an unpracticed waif, but she sure would have killed the role in the day when everyone looked to do it as skillfully as Liza. At the end, she sacrificed emotion for a moment of camp, but that was okay. Going back to the sort of nightstand where she kept her water bottle and Kleenex, Scherzinger crouched down in an odd way \u2014 was she working off a cramp? \u2014 and then reemerged holding something behind her back. \u201cMaybe this time,\u201d she belted, pausing for effect\u2026 out come her two biggest trophies, in either hand\u2026 \u201cI\u2019ll win!\u201d She referred to them as her friends \u201cLaurence and Antoinette,\u201d as in, of course, an Olivier and a Tony.<\/p>\n

\n\tIntermission thoughts: Either you love this kind of blowsy, broad (in all the senses), old-school show-biz-stuff \u2014 lengthy patter interludes included \u2014 or you don\u2019t. Anyone who doesn\u2019t hold the same nostalgic hankering for veteran actresses holding court with one-woman shows might not be blamed for opting out. But Scherzinger is operating out of a great tradition with this stuff, and there aren\u2019t a lot of others of her generation filling the void, at least with her profile coming from the pop side and the chops to work it on the theater side. She feels more born to this than she was to being a 2010s pop tart\u2026 although she was a good enough actress to pull that off, too. Being an Interscope sex bomb definitely did not allow her to casually walk around the stage making slightly off-color remarks in-between showing off coloratura prowess. All of which is to say, if this is a prelude to her doing shows like this indefinitely, and working up to putting \u201cI\u2019m Still Here\u201d into her repertoire 20 years from now, some of us will be there for it.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThe ladies are looking absolutely divine,\u201d Scherzinger told the audience. \u201cA lot of hot men in the house tonight.\u201d Here\u2019s betting she says that to all the Carnegie and Royal Albert Hall boys. Or maybe not.
\u201cLooks like all the WeHos showed up,\u201d she added, getting a big enough roar to drown out whatever she said subsequently. She did not shy away from elbow-nudging humor. Talking of her heritage, she described herself as \u201cHawaiian, Filipino, Spanish, Chinese, Polish\u2026 Irish 2%\u2026 I also have some English in me, too. His name is Thom.\u201d Her fiance, Thom Evans, came up for referencing again when she sang the one new, original song of the evening, the pop-R&B vamp \u201cBullshit\u201d: \u201cThis is my idea of a love song. It\u2019s about waiting for that special someone to, how do you say it, get it together (and) put a ring on it. You catch my drift?\u201d Sample lyric: \u201cWake your ass up before I up and leave.\u201d Flashing a ring after the song was over, she said, \u201cNeedless to say, he got the message.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tScherzinger did not ignore the folks in the balcony behind her, although she meant to, at times. \u201cYou\u2019ve got the best seats in the house!\u201d she informed them early on. Much later, toward the end of the second of three acts, she got verklempt as she started talking about Prince, whom she described as \u201ca big part of who I am \u2014 he was my mentor, my big brother.\u201d Retreating back to the nightstand, she took a moment to turn her back to the audience and wipe her nose. \u201cThank God for these tissues\u2026\u201d Then she remembered there was a whole separate audience behind the stage. \u201cOh great, you guys are here; I\u2019d forgotten that. Give it up for my surprise party back there.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cPurple Rain\u201d was her main sop to mainstream pop-rock tastes, and to the one who makes her cry. The \u201cLa Cage aux Folles\u201d\/Jerry Herman\/Gloria Gaynor anthem \u201cI Am What I Am\u201d was her main sop to the WeHos, as she put it. As for the pure Broadway demographic in the crowd, although she mostly stuck to musical theater\u2019s greatest hits, it was a delight when, to kick off the final act, she brought out the cheeky \u201cDrowsy Chaperone\u201d number \u201cShow Off,\u201d which is exactly what she intended to do for the finale. She appeared for this last bit in what almost appeared to be an elegant bedroom dressing gown, sipping tea (\u201cLet me put this down before I spill too much,\u201d she said), which eventually showed some leg. And then was abandoned altogether to show a lot more than that, as the show settled into its full-Pussycat end run.<\/p>\n

\n\tWith the final Pussycat Dolls medley, Scherzinger \u2014 hoofing it up in black lace and heels, somehow looking about a foot taller than her 5\u20195\u2033 frame \u2014 was all about the life of a showgirl. That\u2019s what would truly draw \u2019em in, probably, if she ever deigned to do this as a Vegas residency. <\/p>\n

\n\tBut what most of this Disney Hall audience will remember most is that two-song \u201cSunset Blvd.\u201d bit, where Norma came alive on west-coast home turf, minus the Broadway stage blood. Without Jamie Lloyd\u2019s cameras there to do close-ups, Scherzinger played the anti-heroine just a little less for obsessive mania and more for pure Barbra-style butter. Norma Desmond doesn\u2019t really have to be portrayed as a killer when, from this murderously good revue, we already understand that Nicole Scherzinger is one.<\/p>\n

\n\tSetlist for Nicole Scherzinger at Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles, Oct. 30, 2025:<\/p>\n

\n\tDon\u2019t Rain on My Parade
I Put a Spell on You
Diamonds Are Forever
Stickwitu
You Raise Me Up\/Reflection
Losing My Mind\/Not a Day Goes By
Maybe This Time<\/p>\n

\n\tSet 2:
I Am What I Am
Bullshit
With One Look
As If We Never Said Goodbye
Purple Rain<\/p>\n

\n\tSet 3:
Show Off
Buttons
When I Grow Up
Don\u2019t Cha
Don\u2019t Hold Your Breath<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"If only we could hear Norma Desmond rise up and sing: Don\u2019t cha wish your girflriend, that little…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":112120,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[146,85,46,63927,72658,72659],"class_list":["post-112119","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-entertainment","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-nicole-scherzinger","tag-sunset-blvd","tag-walt-disney-concert-hall"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/112119","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=112119"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/112119\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/112120"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=112119"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=112119"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=112119"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}