An at-times mesmerizing Keys at Liacouras

Alicia Keys brought her soul revue to the Liacouras Center last night, a show that turned out to be a little too much of a good thing.

After a taped introduction featuring Cedric the Entertainer as a bombastic preacher played on the giant screen over the stage, Keys took the stage, dressed in a sleeveless black vest, black leather pants, kicky sequin high heels and shouting "Philly!"

The opening numbers were rushed medleys, the choreography hectic and the pacing rushed. It felt like the singer's tour bus was double-parked.

It wasn't until eight songs into the show that she finally eased into her forte, parking herself at the piano to belt out personal anthems like "Sure Looks Good to Me" from 2007's As I Am and "How Come You Don't Call Me" from her 2001 debut, Songs in A Minor.

This was Keys at her most mesmerizing, testifying at the keyboard. During these goose-pimple segments, the crowd was rapt.

Then invariably, she would jump up from the piano bench, bring out the dancers and begin prowling the stage for more bumptious numbers. Again and again, the supernal nature of her talent got obscured by the disco dolly gymnastics.

The woman is the modern-day Brenda Russell. So why does she spend so much of her act imitating Donna Summer? Perhaps she feels it is incumbent on her as a headliner to provide the crowd with fireworks.

But there were plenty of those when she simply plugged into her songs. The obvious highlight of the night was her simple but dynamic delivery of "Diary" which dovetailed into the Force M.D.'s classic from the '80s, "Tender Love".

She shared these two songs with backup singer Jermaine Paul. Challenging each other, they built the mood to one of incendiary intensity.

There's no question Keys provided a generous program, but it was an ungainly mix of the soulful and the strident. And on stage, she is so deeply committed to all her material, you can't help but wonder if she herself can tell the difference.

But she did have the good sense to save "No One" for the finale. It was a perfect parting example of how the most simple melodies are the best vehicles for Keys' otherworldly vocal chops.

Reigning American Idol champion Jordin Sparks was to open the show. But this week the teenager suffered an acute vocal cord hemorrhage and will be sidelined for the foreseeable future.

One way to blunt ticket holder disenchantment is to jump start the show. Keys' singer Jermaine Paul was pressed into service as the opening act and was on and off the stage before the concert's scheduled 7:30 p.m. start.

Even when Ne-Yo, who was second on the bill, began performing, the Liacouras was still half-empty, with many people stuck in the usual traffic bottleneck on Broad Street.

The latecomers didn't miss much. Ne-Yo came out in a black tie, tails and twirling a baton. He had a lovely voice but a teflon act, full of amateurish choreography.

Many of Ne-Yos vocals were prerecorded so he was dueting with himself all night. And his band seemed far larger than was needed for the sound they were producing. They resembled a Penn Dot road crew with one guy working and the rest observing disinterestedly.

Near the end of his performance. Ne-Yo switched into a white tropical suit and hat and seemed to catch fire on songs like "So Sick" and a cover of the Eurythmics' "Sweet Dreams" that he mashed into his own hit "Because of You."

By the end, Ne-Yo found his groove but he had long since lost the crowd.