Out in a blaze of glitter

There were acrobats, a dancing elephant, fireworks and an explosion of confetti, plus film clips, moving staircases and a succession of wig hats. There were screaming fans, belly dancers, sailor caps tossed onstage, and in the middle of it all, there was Cher.

On Saturday night, Cher completed her three-year, 325-stop “farewell tour” at the Hollywood Bowl, playing to a sold-out crowd of nearly 18,000. As befitting the woman who single-handedly popularized bare midriffs, bare backs and the feathered headdress (the last of which, mercifully, never really caught on), Cher made her entrance from on high. Covered from head to foot in a Snow Queen silver coat and hood, she descended in a contraption that looked eerily like the torch from the Statue of Liberty. As she belted out her standard opening number -- a cover of U2’s “I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For” -- she hit the stage, ditched the coat and there she was in all her Glitter Gypsy, G-string glory.

Beneath the 5 pounds of glittery eye shadow, her face was hard to recognize, but show me another 58-year-old mother of two (she turns 59 on May 20) willing to bare even a mesh-enhanced version of her butt and belly onstage.

The crowd was instantly on its feet, where it stayed for much of the show. A mix of middle-aged women (some of whom had actually persuaded their partners to attend) and gay men, the audience was clearly devoted (amid the more ubiquitous crop pants and Bowl-friendly blue jeans were the homemade glitter “Do You Believe?” tunics, white leather fringed jackets and gartered stockings).

The crowd was warmed up by half an hour of the Village People -- the big question is not “What will Cher do next?” (She’ll be fine), but “The Village People?” -- and fueled more by ebullience than regret, perhaps because few believed it was really the end. Musicians have little credibility when it comes to goodbye -- from Sinatra to the Stones, they tend to change their minds after a year or two away from the roar of the crowd.

Cher, however, insists, this is it -- the rare, really truly last tour.

“I’m approaching 80,” she joked from the stage, “and if I did that thing everyone does, come back in five years, I’d be driving around in one of those carts -- you know, the ones with the joysticks you see in Costco.

“There are two reason people come back. Because, like the Stones, they’re broke. Again. Or they’re old divas who can’t wait to be out among their adoring fans. But this,” she said amid boos and loving cheers, “this truly is it.”

Maybe. Still, the Cirque du Soleil atmosphere -- scarf-hanging gymnasts, tumbling belly dancers, lithe and prowling lions back-lighted with flame -- lent a Vegas air to the show that seemed almost prophetic. If Celine Dion needs a vacation from Caesars Palace, why not get Cher to sub for her?

The show itself was what it had been for the last three years -- a greatest-hits homage to a woman with one of the fullest careers known to the entertainment industry (surely, the infomercial years have provided key emotional growth and insight).

Cher has won all the marks required for entertainment-icon status -- the Oscar, the Emmy, the Grammy, the longtime lampooning by other performers (for the record, no imitation Cher Hair Flip touches the original). Cher even made “Doonesbury” -- at one point in the ‘80s, Uncle Duke was assigned to the Cher beat, a media self-reference of algebraic proportions.

And here it all was blazing from the Bowl’s four big screens -- the montage of the Sonny years, and clips of her solo career (including some hilarious animated footage of “Dark Lady”). Here was Carol Burnett as Cher, here was Cher with the Jackson Five, Ray Charles, Elton John, David Bowie, Lily Tomlin, the Muppets. Here was Cher making her entrance on her eponymous show in an endless array of Bob Mackie gowns.

Indeed, many moments felt as much like a paean to the TV variety show -- God, don’t you miss Phyllis Diller? -- as an all-Cher review.

Even though Cher had performed the previous night, her voice was very strong and not as electronically enhanced as one might have expected; she could still belt it out. If there were long pauses between the actual singing (and there were), and if Cher left most of the dancing up to her chorus line (“I’m just going to sway,” she told the audience at one point. “I think it makes me seem more sincere”), well, she had to keep her strength up for the dozen or so costume changes. The red Mylar fringed number, complete with matching wig, was a real showstopper.

Her music has become the sort that gives you a little lift while pushing the cart through Ralphs, and the nostalgia that fueled the show was as much about the audience -- where were you when Sonny and Cher split up? -- as it was about the performer. But none of that mattered to the fans, groups of whom spontaneously sang “I Got You Babe” even as they patiently moved with the crush at the end of the show.

And why should it? Cher has always been more than her music. An underdog even when she had her own show, she is an actress who has convincingly played characters far outside the mainstream -- the biker mom in “Mask,” the lesbian funeral-home cosmetologist in “Silkwood.” So when she sings “Song for the Lonely,” it’s easy to feel as if she really does understand.

Foul-mouthed, frank and fun -- the best part of the show might have been when, descending a long staircase, she tripped slightly and swore audibly mid-song -- Cher seems like the sort of friend you’d like to have. Cher does not judge (OK, she wasn’t cool when daughter Chastity first came out, but she got over it). She’s like Harper Lee’s mockingbird -- all she does is sing her heart out for us.

And there are few among us who can hear “Believe” without singing along. As the song’s lyrics unfurled during the first encore, the sound of the audience threatened, at times, to drown out the star’s singing.

The show ended, as it should, in fireworks, with the tour’s taunting tagline -- “Follow this, you [expletive that rhymes with witches]” -- spelled out in pyrotechnics.

There is only one woman who could get that word emblazoned above the hallowed dome of the Hollywood Bowl. And that woman, ladies and gentlemen, is Cher.