Miranda Cosgrove Proves Big Hit With Mothers And Daughters

As the mother of three, I've liked Miranda Cosgrove ever since she played mischievous little sister Megan Parker on the Nickelodeon sitcom  Drake & Josh.

The popularity of the series led to the creation of iCarly—one of the higest-rated shows in the 9-14 demographic—with Cosgrove in the lead role.

Today Cosgrove earns $180,000 per episode—making her the second highest-paid child star on TV after Angus T. Jones of Two and a Half Men.

Having enjoyed a long career in front of the camera, the 17-year-old star is now learning about life in front of a lot of young screaming girls on her first concert tour. Indeed, 10 months after releasing "Sparks Fly," her debut album, Cosgrove has hit the road, including two stops at the Wellmont Theatre this week.

I took my 10-year-old daughter and her friend to see her last night, marking their first concert, and both were over the moon during the hour of bubble-gum pop from Cosgrove. They were equally bowled over by the performance from Greyson Chance, the Oklahoma boy often dubbed the next Justin Bieber, that preceded it.

The tour continues with another show at the Wellmont on Saturday night. (For anyone going, Chance sits at the back and gives autographs while the audience waits for Cosgrove to come on. Oh, and look out for free Neutrogena skin care products—Cosgrove recently signed on with the company.)

My first concert was Earth, Wind, & Fire, a group that—in my book—has stood the test of time.

I knew Cossgrove would be nothing like that and, to be honest, I wasn't particularly looking forward to venturing out on a freezing cold night and fighting the traffic along Bloomfield Avenue only to endure the sweet but hardly strong voice of yet another child actor longing to be a singer.

But, like my daughter, I had a ball. While Cosgrove isn't likely to be the next Whitney Houston any time soon, she knows her audience. She opened with a song everyone is familiar with, the iCarly theme song "Leave It All to Me."

Again and again, she called out to "her girls" in the audience, asking them to sing along to songs such as "I'm Just A Girl." Also fun was her dance-pop track "Bam" and a brand new song called "Sayonara." She also showcased some pretty solid vocals during the slightly tongue-in-cheeck track "Disgusting."

With two costume changes, the bouncy Cosgrove was more than adept at engaging the audience, including fans as young as 3, with catchy tunes in a kind of 80s bananarama-ish way. Helping matters was that, much of the time, she also was bookended by two very agile male dancers.

Cosgrove bent down often to touch the hands of those reaching out to her—pleasing the young girls—and ended the concert after only an hour—pleasing the mothers concerned about it being a school night.

With her 18th birthday approaching in May, Cosgrove told the crowd that she'd submitted a slew of college applications, including one to New York University.

She also shouted out the obligatory "I love New Jersey" on more than one occasion.

Certainly she has the talking part of her concerts down pat. And, to my surprise, her singing is coming along too.