Britney Spears is back in the pink during energetic Cleveland concert at The Q

At Quicken Loans arena Tuesday night, Britney Spears drove into the center of the stage perched atop the windshield of a pink convertible Mini Cooper with a stripper pole erected in its back seat. Attached to that pole was a guy she'd pulled from the audience named Greg, a daddy-ish type in a blue polo shirt. His hands tied behind his back, he had to sit still while Brit wrapped her fishnet-clad thighs around his neck. I got nine lives like a kitty cat." That lyric, from "How I Roll," a nonsensical yet sizzling new single, is hardly hyperbole.

Once written off as the punch line to jokes about washed up superstars, Brit is back - washboard abs and all. The K-Fed loving, paparazzi-whacking, head-shaving antics of years ago are ancient history. With "Femme Fatale," her new No. 1 album, two Video Music Award nominations and a kinetic summer tour, the 29-year-old mother of two is thumbing her darling, turned-up nose at all the haters out there and dancing her toned bum off. They wore naughty Catholic school girl plaid mini skirts and white button-down shirts knotted just under the bosom, hot pants and stilettos. There were more tanned thighs and exposed navels on display than spring break in Cancun.

The Femme Fatale Tour was a decidedly estrogen-heavy affair with opening acts Nervo - twin Aussie DJs who also model on the side, one with pink hair gelled into a "Heat Meiser" do - and Jessie and the Toy Boys, a Britney look-alike flanked by leaping dudes in fluffy mohawks. But the intergalactic girl power passion play put on by Nicki Minaj turned the arena into a full-out rave. Minaj, in a platinum wig and black body suit festooned with glittery pipe cleaner shooting from her pelvis and shoulders gyrated and sweated as she battled a faux foe in black fright wig and what appeared to be the rubber mask worn by the villain Jigsaw in all those "Saw" movies. As Britney cycled through hits new and old - a Geisha version of "Toxic," "Womanizer," "Slave 4 U" - she seemed more like the girl that first burst onto the scene with "Baby One More Time." Repeating "I love you, Cleveland" and waving coquettishly, she was happy, flirty and fun, not what some critics called "the robot Brit" of last tour, just going through the slick, choreographed motions with little heart. She returned to the stage to take her bows, laughing like a little girl, "glitterfetti" raining down.