Review: Alicia Keys put on a big, bold show. But was it missing a few (thousand) things?

Charlotte’s Spectrum Center was outfitted on Sunday night with all the trappings of a major-arena-concert spectacle: a 360-degree, “in-the-round” main stage, two distinct catwalks flanked by a series of cryo jets, a grand staircase featuring high-tech lighting effects, and — right in the middle of it all — a sparkly platinum Yamaha grand piano with Alicia Keys’ logo on it.

It seemed like the only thing missing was a major-arena-concert-sized crowd.

I hate to admit, I was pretty surprised when I walked off of the concourse into the lower bowl to discover that curtains were blocking off every one of Spectrum’s upper levels for Keys’ show. Because while she hasn’t had a legit hit in over a decade, Keys was crowned Billboard’s Top R&B/Hip-Hop Artist of the 2000s, and I would have figured her legacy would include a great many packed arenas even into her 40s.

At first blush, it appeared as though it did not.

Just 11 months removed from a sold-out concert at the AvidXChange Music Factory’s 5,000-fan-capacity outdoor amphitheater, it appeared Keys had lured only a couple thousand more people to the city’s largest indoor venue for her current “Keys to the Summer Tour” (which launched in Florida last week).

But here’s the thing: Though a closed upper deck at Spectrum often means ticket sales were poor, Keys did it, apparently, intentionally — to ensure that there wasn’t a bad seat in the house.

It was never going to feel like a club show, per se; but the concert certainly felt a heck of a lot more intimate than it would have if 18,000 tickets had been sold. And although the crowd may have been scaled down, the 42-year-old Keys still gave a positively massive performance that pulled no punches as it sailed boldly through her stunning catalog of R&B-, hip-hop- and pop-inflected tracks.

She wowed even when unseen, dramatically opening her set by repeating the opening line of the neo-soul ballad that launched her career back in 2001 — IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII keep on faaa-llin’ ... IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII keep on faaa-llin’ ... IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII keep on faaa-llin’ — in a cappella fashion while shrouded almost entirely in darkness as she climbed onto the stage and took her place at her sparkly platinum Yamaha.

When the spotlight finally turned on and her band kicked up to support her, her visual presence proved equally striking. Her initial ensemble almost defies explanation, but we’ll try: Two-thirds of her suit was metallic green with geometric shapes, with the remainder white with large green diamonds. A green bra and her bare midriff poked out from underneath her jacket. Her dark sunglasses had white frames to match her white sneakers, and the majority of her hair was fashioned into something on the top of her head that resembled a jelly roll.

There was no bench at her piano, she simply stood at it and smiled and sang and bobbed her head, occasionally thrusting a free fist in the air as the platform upon which the instrument rested slowly rotated.

Keys also left her post at that piano frequently, to dance around the stage, or across one of the catwalks, or up the grand staircase — marching, stutter-stepping, spinning, clutching her chest, making wild hand gestures, and just generally trying to keep things moving. In more ways than one.

To be sure, to get through 32 songs in 1 hour and 45 minutes, you have to take some shortcuts. So she’d do what amounted to snippets of deeper cuts like “New Day,” “Love Looks Better” and “Limitedless” to give her some breathing room on the bigger songs she knew her fans had really come for, like her catchy R&B hits “You Don’t Know My Name” and “My Boo” (the latter of which was, of course, missing original duet partner Usher but instead incorporated a lithe male dance partner).

After a midpoint break, Keys returned in a floor-length black cloak covered in sequins and worn over a bralette/bodysuit and baggy dress pants that had black sequins to match the cloak.

For the next 25 minutes, she performed atop the grand staircase on an upright piano, hurrying through several lesser tracks but then drawing out a splendiferous rendition of her old cover of Prince’s “How Come U Don’t Call Me Anymore” and her sweet soul-R&B ballad “A Woman’s Worth” — which was accompanied by a collection of videos of tight shots of a variety of women’s resolute faces.

Those 25 minutes, and the last 25, were the most powerful portions of the show.

Starting with crowd favorite “Girl On Fire,” Keys went on a muscular homestretch run that included two of her most beloved anthems — “Empire State of Mind” and “No One” — as well as a pulsating cover of the Eurythmics “Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This).”

But by the time she finally launched into her closer, “If I Ain’t Got You,” she was losing her grip on the crowd.

Her voice wasn’t just good on that iconic 2003 hit. It was goosebump-inducing. The problem wasn’t her singing. It was more her ... timing.

The reason fans were flooding to the exits at this point was because it was late: The encore kicked off just shy of 11:20 p.m..

I may sound like an old man for complaining about a concert stretching past 11. At the same time, I absolutely noticed a ton of people leaving at the top of that hour. Eleven has, after all, been kind of the agreed-upon latest-end-time for concerts for many, many years now. Which makes sense, I think, particularly on a weeknight. (In this case, I do know a lot of people have Monday off because of the Fourth of July holiday. However, a lot of people also do not.)

Based on what I’ve read about the first two shows on her new tour, in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, and in Tampa, this wasn’t a unique occurrence. Both of those shows ended between 11:15 and 11:20, reportedly.

Pushing everything up by 20 minutes seems like an easy fix that I wish Alicia Keys would consider.

After all, if you’re going to invite a relatively limited number of fans to see such a visual and sonic treat in the first place, you probably want to design everything so that as many of them as possible will feel good about sticking around to see — and hear — the very end.

Alicia Keys’ setlist

1. “Fallin’”

2. “New Day”

3. “Love Looks Better”

4. “Limitedless”

5. “You Don’t Know My Name”

6. “Karma”

7. “Try Sleeping With a Broken Heart”

8. “Un-Thinkable (I’m Ready)“

9. “Underdog”

10. “Blended Family (What You Do for Love)“

11. “Holy War”

12. “Come for Me”

13. “My Boo”

14. “City of Gods (Part II)“

15. “How Come U Don’t Call Me Anymore”

16. “The Thing About Love”

17. “A Woman’s Worth”

18. “Superwoman”

19. “Not Even the King”

20. “Butterflyz”

21. “That’s How Strong My Love Is”

22. “Diary”

23. “Like You’ll Never See Me Again”

24. “I Need You”

25. “The Gospel”

26. “Where Do We Go From Here”

27. “Girl on Fire”

28. “Empire State of Mind”

29. “Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This)“

30. “In Common”

31. “No One”

Encore:

32. “If I Ain’t Got You”