More is more with pop's top over-the-topper Celine Dion

All hail Queen Celine!

She's the reigning diva of over-the-top pop and empress of the box office. The Canadian chanteuse's Taking Chances World Tour, which plays Saturday at the T-Dome, is the top-grossing tour of the year, raking in an average of $4.6 million per show, according to Pollstar, the concert-industry trade magazine. You can do that when your average ticket price surpasses $125, with premium seats going for close to $400 each.

Dion hasn't been here in a decade, so ticket demand is high. She'll play to a full house of 22,500 in Tacoma.

Ann Wilson, take note: Dion has been featuring Heart's soaring "Alone" in concert, taking Wilson's throat-shredding vocal to new, glass-shattering levels.

With Dion, everything is overdone, from the vocals to the costumes to the staging. Every song in her set is like a big finale, with the seven-piece band, three background singers and eight dancers all taking part. Her incredible voice, a force of nature akin to a hurricane, sails over it all with a kind of note-perfect purity that is nothing short of amazing.

The knock on Dion is that she's all razzle-dazzle and showy gestures, with lots of steamy passion but no subtlety and little heart. In short, there's a lot on the surface but little underneath.

Dion hasn't toured in a while because she (A) gave birth to a son, now 6, and (B) had a five-year residency at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas that was sold out every night and grossed more than $100 million.

She brings some of that show's glitzy production to her in-the-round concert, including a massive, multilevel stage with moving conveyor belts, hydraulic risers, a double tier of huge video screens and eye-popping lighting effects. In addition to some of her most popular songs — including "My Heart Will Go On" from "Titanic" as the closer — the set includes big helpings from her latest album, "Taking Chances," and a number of covers.

The show lasts about two hours. At the end, she exits grandly through the audience, giving her subjects one last chance to cheer their pop-music queen.

Patrick MacDonald: 206-464-2312

or pmacdonald@seattletimes.com