The first mention of "Wizards of Waverly Place" did get the second biggest crowd reaction of the night when Alex Russo's real-life counterpart, Selena Gomez, played the Arizona State Fair Sunday at Veterans Memorial Coliseum.

But she got an even more enthusiastic audience response to the news that "A Year Without Rain," her latest single, was up next on the set list.

And that speaks well of her odds for crossing over from beloved Disney Channel icon into something more than just a part-time pop star.
"A Year Without Rain" is actually the second single off the 18-year-old singer's second album with Selena Gomez & and the Scene to go Top 40 on the Hot 100. And she opened with the first, the pulsating electro-pop revival moves of "Round & Round," which proved the perfect introduction to what Gomez has to offer as an entertainer, enthusiastically spinning in circles as she hopped up and down in a strapless sequined dress.
A confident performer with a winning personality, she worked the crowd like a cool older sister while making her way through the highlights of her own brief career as a pop star and no fewer than five covers (in a set that barely crossed the 60-minute threshold), including Pat Benatar's "Love is A Battlefield" (which may be better suited to BFF Demi Lovato), Jason Derulo's "In My Head" and Taylor Swift's wallflower anthem, "You Belong With Me," which resulted in one of the concert's more enthusiastic singalongs. The encore-closing cover of "Magic" was actually both - a hit for Gomez and a Pilot cover.
Most songs worked a dance-pop vibe, including the Madonna-flavored "Off the Chain." But there were clear traces of '70s glam in "Rock God" and '60s garage in "Kiss and Tell," a surprisingly gritty rocker built on a Bo Diddley beat. She threw some sassy New Wave vocals into the audience shoutalong "More" and appeared to be channeling Ke$ha in some of the quirkier parts of "Falling Down" and "Intuition."
She struggled with pitch on "The Way I Loved You," the first of two songs in an unplugged mini-set, but had much better luck on the second acoustic song, the Cheryl Cole hit "Parachute," which seemed a bit more in her range. She's at her best, though, as a singer and an entertainer, on spunkier fare, from "Round & Round" to the attitude-driven "Tell Me Something I Don't Know" and the spirited "Magic."