R. Kelly sings for the big-booty girls

After a warm-up date in nearby Columbus, R. Kelly kicked off the first date of his national tour at Philips Arena last night. An anonymous singer performed the national anthem, and then R. Kelly was led through the crowd, like a prize-winning boxer, to a stage that was temporarily set up as a boxing ring. "The champ is here!" screamed a voice over the loudspeakers as all the girls in the audience squealed.

R. Kelly performed most of his radio hits, remixes and guest spots for other artists, from Jay-Z's "Fiesta" to Bow Wow's "I'm a Flirt." But what the ladies wanted to hear were the baby-making songs. He got the biggest response for "Your Body's Calling" from his classic second album 12 Play, and you could hear the nearly sell-out audience singing along to every word. Then he flipped it, and began riffing angrily, "After all of these years, these motherfuckers still calling on me," apparently alluding to his ongoing court case for allegedly having sex with underage girls. Then he twisted that line, too, and sang sweetly, "Don't it feel good, yeah, when motherfuckers still calling on you," referring to the way his fans still support him regardless of those legal problems.

At one point, Kells announced, "I'm going to sing a song ... it's something I just wrote two weeks ago before I went out on tour." He dedicated it to all the big-booty girls in the audience. "I'll do something for the small-booty girls next time." He proceeded to sing this ridiculously pompous number about a woman's gluteus maximus. "All right, I'll stop playing with them," he said, and went into "Feelin' On You Booty."

Needless to say, R. Kelly is something of a freak, but he's also a great performer, and his two-hour show entertainingly switched moods throughout, from overtly sexual to jokey and familial. There were still a lot of dumbasses who bolted after the first hour and a half — probably so they could get to the "official afterparty" (at Compound, Opera, E.S.S.O. or some other lame superclub). But that said much more about his fans than it did about him.