Kelly Clarkson tests boundaries of pop-starlet mould at Toronto show

Kelly Clarkson

RICHARD LAUTENS/TORONTO STAR Kelly Clarkson performs at the Molson Amphitheatre, August 28, 2012.

As hateful and calculating and insipid as American Idol and the whole music-industrial complex can be, sometimes they get it right. And they got it right with Kelly Clarkson.

Close enough to right, anyway. Clarkson doesnt represent a wholesale shattering of the conventional pop-starlet mould, no, but shes doing just fine gently testing its boundaries.

You could tell the 30-year-old Fort Worth, TX, native was more rock chick than programmatic chart bait when she was vigorously busting out Janis Joplins Piece of Your Heart on her first victory lap as the first American Idol champ on tour in 2003, could tell she had some proper rock n roll mettle when she called out Clive Davis and the entire industry old boys club to the predictable detriment of her touring receipts and record sales during the fight to release her surprisingly tempestuous My December as she (kinda) wanted it in 2007. So if the Clarkson who emerged from all that stickin-to-her-guns strife to continue smashing the public with hits like My Life Would Suck Without You and this years What Doesnt Kill You (Stronger) 3,669,000 downloads delivered since January, thank you very much now treads somewhere between Up Yours Kelly and Industry Kelly, shell always be a little tougher than the rest in my books. If the old boys club she got hammered for hammering herself didnt exist, she wouldnt have been dumped to the casino circuit for the My December tour. Plain and simple.

As ongoing revenge for all that disruptive nonsense, Clarkson easily owned her headlining slot at the Molson Amphitheatre on Tuesday night.

The crowd of about 10,000 left the lawn a little b! arren, b ut that felt more like a miscalculation of the double-bill drawing power of popular-but-not-particularly-good openers The Fray who sound less like an actual fray than a mild foofaraw with piano above the 49th parallel than a case of Clarkson underselling the venue in her own right.

Almost everyone around me had remained seated, bored and looking somewhat disenchanted until AC/DCs You Shook Me (All Night Long) signalled Clarksons approach to the stage, anyway. Then we all went freakin nuts for a Benatar-worthy phalanx of amped-up bubble gum riff candy My Life Would Suck Without You, Behind These Hazel Eyes and a generous sampling of the Stronger program composed of I Forgive You, Dark Side and the scornful You Love Me until Clarkson strode deep into the 300 section singing Fun.s We Are Young utterly owning it and, more importantly, singing every note on key without the benefit of proper monitors. Then we all went more nuts.

I went as nuts as I could sitting on the lawn directly in front of the 300s cradling a $15 beer between my legs, anyway. I feared at least two of the three gay gentlemen in front of me might explode in delight when We Are Young segued expertly into Already Gone, and went nuts vicariously through them. Then I grabbed another beer, settled back into my spot and admitted to myself that I was having a much better time than Id expected again at a Clarkson show.

It was a tad disappointing, granted, that Clarkson chose Michael Bubls Home to cover on a tour that has already seen her capably drop such wild-card jams as Kings of Leons Cold Desert, Florence and the Machines Shake It Out, Carly Rae Jepsens Call Me Maybe and a surprisingly solid version Eminems Lose Yourself in Detroit during its audience-request segment. She could beat Bubls brains out in a sing-off, though, and that song was one of the few moments on Tuesday night when Clarkson let her voice loose to the melismatic extremes to which singers possessed of her gifts usually! resort. She doesnt show off. She shows off so little, in fact, that when the big hits Breakaway, Since U Been Gone, Because of You and, of course, What Doesnt Kill You (Stronger) were rolled out at the end of the set there was pretty much zero fanfare announcing the no-encore cut-off. A whole lotta That was better than I expected was abruptly curtailed with a shock of I actually wouldve been happy with a few more tunes and then, yknow, a rock critic went home admitting to himself that hes gone totally soft and put the copy of My December he still plays from time next to the CD player. Just in case.