From the South Florida Sun-Sentinel

Jingle Ball rock

Alex Clarke
American Heritage

December 17 2008

Y100's Jingle Ball 2008 at the BankAtlantic Center in Sunrise touted a hit list of artists. Despite the nosebleed seats they put me in (seriously...two rows from the top!) and the fact that the majority of the performers called us Miami instead of Fort Lauderdale, there wasn't too much to complain about. Here is a list of the artists in the order they went on and what I thought of their performances:

1. The Academy Is... These guys were good. Not much else to say, though. With only a three-song set, they were on and off in less than ten minutes.

2. Shontelle The newcomer from Barbados sang her catchy T-Shirt, among others. She warmed up the crowd.

3. The Veronicas They were the first good performance of the night. The alt-rockers used the lighting to their advantage to finally get the audience moving.

4. Kevin Rudolf The maestro of Let It Rock, his only interesting song, didn't stay on stage long. Judging by his voice, he was sick ... or something.

5. Lady Gaga With her brash attitude and stylish club persona, Gaga put on the best performance up to this point and possibly the best performance of the night. Using the screens hanging above the stage to project prerecorded videos of herself, her set had the most originality of Jingle Ball. When she got to her hit single, Just Dance, the audience was finally up on its feet.

6. Jesse McCartney The all-grown-up pop star showed off his new, more mature style, with his Justin Timberlake-like dance moves. Of course he returned to old form for an audience favorite, his 2004 hit Beautiful Soul.

7. Katy Perry 2008's "it girl" ran onto the stage scantily clad in a Santa outfit, starting with Hot N Cold. Unlike many of the other artists, she actually spoke to the audience, telling us how she it was "weird" to play in such a big arena. When she got to I Kissed a Girl at the end of her set, the entire audience was singing along.

8. Fall Out Boy These popular rockers made a big entrance and got some of the biggest applause of the night. They went through much of their popular repertoire (Sugar We're Going Down, Dance, Dance, This Ain't a Scene, it's an Arms Race) and even played a few covers, most notably Michael Jackson's Beat It.

9. Rihanna After Fall Out Boy, you might have thought that no one could have gotten more applause. You would have been wrong. After the long break to set up the headliner's tour, Rihanna entered the stage and received the largest audience reaction of the night. Starting with Disturbia, she danced her way up and down the stage the entire show. Like Lady Gaga, her performance was greatly enhanced with the supreme utilization of the overhead screens and the stage lighting.

10. Chris Brown Brown only danced his way through one song, his hit Forever.

11. Rihanna and Chris Brown After Forever was over, Rihanna ran back on to do a duet with Brown. Many were surprised that she had not covered her 2007 mega-hit Umbrella in her set. Their concerns were quieted when the two sang the Umbrella remix, Cinderella.

Overall, it was a great concert. The ladies stole the show this time.