About to head on out in a snowstorm to see the (nearly) sold out show at Joe Louis Arena in Detroit. Just saw something on the news about a street being named after him in honor of this being his "final" tour. Not sure where they're getting that information, but if it's true, the show at Madison Square Garden on Tuesday might be the final concert of his career.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2015-11-22 00:02 by tatters.

Safe travels tatters and enjoy the show.

On a side note, I was talking earlier this week with some long time Detroit residents who said the city is really coming back with lots of rebuilding going on there now. Hope to get up there someday.

Saw this show last year in DC. Remarkable evening.

Quote
tatters
About to head on out in a snowstorm to see the (nearly) sold out show at Joe Louis Arena in Detroit. Just saw something on the news about a street being named after him in honor of this being his "final" tour. Not sure where they're getting that information, but if it's true, the show at Madison Square Garden on Tuesday might be the final concert of his career.

Have fun! Let's hope that these aren't his last shows. You will see evidence that the man has plenty left as a performer.

Wow, what a show! 3 hours and 40 minutes, if you include the 30-minute intermission. His band was still playing "Superstition" when his backup singers led him off the stage at 12:24 AM.

Tatters, I was going to message you, I got my ticket last minute. Yes, what a show. I was 12 row, and dancing, shimmying and singing with a crowd of deep Detroit funk lovers.

A 21 piece band, with an additional 8 piece string section. And man was this band hot. Really, Songs in the Key of Life is one of those deeply imbedded album from my youth in Detroit. It was a summer album. Everywhere in Detroit. I remember my Mom got it, with the EP with additional songs that couldn't fit on the double! It was a hot summer, full of hydrants spraying kids on bikes, steaming cement, and hot humid days of trees barely weaving from the hot air.

Last night Stevie came back home. He immersed himself deeply into what I think is his strongest and most inspirational albums. Intricate backing vocals arranged in a soul/gospel choir. Luscious warm strings. Not synth strings, but warm honey strings. Incredible band!

Stevie didn't just stay slavish to the originals, yet kept them true and to the core. Just longer versions with some great jamming.

Joy Inside My Tears. My goodness. The heart and soul of the entire show. He extended the ending jam and vocal to a stunning close where the Detroit boy shook his head and started crying. Joy INSIDE MY TEARS. It was some of the most captivating heart felt singing and playing I have ever heard. Stunningly beautiful.

My only gripe, and a slight one was, after the album was done he continued and became a DJ for the entire stadium. Great idea! And for a while very compelling creating a house party in Joe Louis arena! Everyone up and singing and dancing. And he was spinning DETROIT. Dancing in the Street, Cool Jerk, My Girl, and even Slim Shady. Yet, then he went on to do a melody of some if his most important songs, like Higher Ground and Uptight...yet he didn't do the entire song, and I wondered if he would have played a few less DJ songs he might have done his songs instead. But a minor quibble after seeing a stretched out menacingly deep hot Detroit Funk, SUPERSTITIOUS. It was incendiary and left my knees aching until this afternoon.

What a party! I drove for four hours through Michigan's first full on blizzard of the Winter season. Full on white outs, people driving with their hazards on. I passed 10 cars, I counted, spun out into ditches or hillsides. I pulled into the Renaissance Marriot on the river and kissed my steering wheel. And I couldn't help but notice, as everyone was filing out of the stadium into the blowing snow, no one was cold. Stevie brought the hot summer back for a night of a simmering hot funk stew.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 2015-11-22 22:24 by whitem8.

Okay, now that I've had my coffee ....

I have to say I wasn't thrilled about the idea of him doing SITKOF in its entirety. He's got 30 top 10 hits he could play, and only three of them (and not my three favorites, either) are on that album. I've been listening to it in my car the past couple of weeks and it seemed to me like it just wasn't particularly well-suited to a complete start to finish live presentation. Too many long, meandering, mid-tempo songs that just don't seem to go anywhere. I was expecting a long, tedious evening, to tell you the truth.

I was completely wrong, of course. Many of the deep cuts I had previously dismissed as "filler" were completely transformed in live performance, with a power that the studio versions don't even begin to hint at. Incredibly, it was one of these songs, "Joy Inside My Tears," that really brought the house down, receiving the kind of extended, emotional standing ovation I've rarely witnessed in 40 years of attending rock concerts.

There was another dynamic going on last night that you don't often see (actually you don't EVER see it) at rock concerts; an audience that was split racially right down the middle; 50% white and 50% black. It was a beautiful thang, and I wish there were more performers around with that kind of broad-based appeal.

The first set alone lasted 90 minutes. Following a 30-minute break, he played for another 75 minutes, finishing the album at the stroke of midnight. Then, without leaving the stage, he went into his rather odd "DJ Tick Tick Boom" act, in which he briefly teases, but does not actually play, a variety of classic songs. In this case, they weren't his songs, but the songs of other well known Motown artists. After around 15 minutes of this, he began to play a medley of his greatest hits, which I found to be incredibly frustrating because while his goal seemed to be to include as many songs as possible, he didn't stay on any one song for more than a few seconds, making it impossible to really get into any of them. Finally, he did do a more or less complete version of "Superstition" to end the show.

Hopefully, he'll be back. A 3-night stand at our 5,000-seat Fox Theater would be nice. Maybe a greatest hits show, or a different classic album each night. Talking Book one night, Innvervisions the next, etc. Or maybe last night really was his farewell to Detroit. If it was, it'll go down as the stuff of legend.



Edited 4 time(s). Last edit at 2015-11-22 20:48 by tatters.

Quote
whitem8
Tatters, I was going to message you, I got my ticket last minute. Yes, what a show. I was 12 row, and dancing, shimmying and singing with a crowd of deep Detroit funk lovers.

A 21 piece band, with an additional 8 piece string section. And man was this band hot. Really, Songs in the Key of Life is one of those deeply imbedded album from my youth in Detroit. It was a summer album. Everywhere in Detroit. I remember my Mom got it, with the one sided 45 of an additional song that couldn't fit on the double! It was a hot summer, full of hydrants spraying kids on bikes, steaming cement, and hot humid days of trees barely weaving from the hot air.

Last night Stevie came back home. He immersed himself deeply into what I think is his strongest and most inspirational albums. Intricate backing vocals arranged in a soul/gospel choir. Luscious warm strings. Not synth strings, but warm honey strings. Incredible band!

Stevie didn't just stay slavish to the originals, yet kept them true and to the core. Just longer versions with some great jamming.

Joy Inside My Tears. My goodness. The heart and soul of the entire show. He extended the ending jam and vocal to a stunning close where the Detroit boy shook his head and started crying. Joy INSIDE MY TEARS. It was some of the most captivating heart felt singing and playing I have ever heard. Stunningly beautiful.

My only gripe, and a slight one was, after the album was done he continued and became a DJ for the entire stadium. Great idea! And for a while very compelling creating a house party in Joe Louis arena! Everyone up and singing and dancing. And he was spinning DETROIT. Dancing in the Street, Cool Jerk, My Girl, and even Slim Shady. Yet, then he went on to do a melody of some if his most important songs, like Higher Ground and Uptight...yet he didn't do the entire song, and I wondered if he would have played a few less DJ songs he might have done his songs instead. But a minor quibble after seeing a stretched out menacingly deep hot Detroit Funk, SUPERSTITIOUS. It was incendiary and left my knees aching until this afternoon.

What a party! I drove for four hours through Michigan's first full on blizzard of the Winter season. Full on white outs, people driving with their hazards on. I passed 10 cars, I counted, spun out into ditches or hillsides. I pulled into the Renaissance Marriot on the river and kissed my steering wheel. And I couldn't help but notice, as everyone was filing out of the stadium into the blowing snow, no one was cold. Stevie brought the hot summer back for a night of a simmering hot funk stew.

Sounds like we have similar takes on last night's proceedings. SITKOF was released when I was a senior in high school, and I remember it as one of those albums that was always on the turntable (along with George Benson's Breezin' and Stanley Clarke's School Days) at the many parities I attended during the couple of months just prior to my graduation.

"Joy Inside My Tears." Yeah, wasn't that incredible? I never would have guessed that a song like that would be the high point of the evening.

Really wish he would have dispensed with the medley and just picked 3 or 4 of his greatest hits and played them all the way through. Unfortunately, this is something that a lot of the old Motown artists do. I saw the Jacksons a couple of years ago and they medleyed all of their early hits. I don't know why they do that. It's very frustrating.

Anyway, a great show, and I think it made a very strong case for SITKOL being one of the all-time great albums, which a lot of people consider it to be, as well as being the culmination of his "classic" period. I wish I'd caught his show last year at the Palace as well.



Edited 5 time(s). Last edit at 2015-11-22 20:54 by tatters.

Yeah, I generally do not like medlies, and that was very frustrating because I was just getting a heavy groove going to Higher Ground and then he stops to switch to another song. Like I said, that was my only gripe of the show...and really it is so minor compared to the deep art of seeing all of Songs in the Key of Life and to hear a man, who's voice sounds amazing, with no loss in the high range, just stunning!

I feel very jealous boys
I hope he will come to Europe soon !

Glad you all enjoyed it. When I saw him a year ago, a highlight was "As". He also did a Ray Charles song in the middle. Finally, while he did the DJ thing there were more complete songs. He must've been feeling good that night, as the show was 4 hours (including the break). It was right after the shooting in Missouri & Stevie gave a speech about that then launched into an incredibly heavy version of "Living for the City". I still get chills thinking about it. Back to the DJ thing: I think that is Stevie having fun. I'm good with that. Whatever it takes for him to enjoy performing. He's certainly earned a little leeway there. Really hope he continues to tour. Think he has a lot left to give musically.

1st Set

Love's in Need of Love Today

Have a Talk With God

Village Ghetto Land

Contusion

Sir Duke

I Wish

Knocks Me Off My Feet

The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face
(Roberta Flack cover) (Background singer solo)

Summertime
(Ella Fitzgerald cover) (Background singer solo)

Besame Mucho
(Consuelo Velázquez cover) (Background singer solo: Jasmine Cruz)

At Last
(Etta James cover) (Background singer solo)

I Love The Lord
(Whitney Houston cover) (Background singer solo: Shelea Frazier)

Talk to Me, Talk to Me
(Little Willie John cover) (with Keith & Kevin John )

Overjoyed

I Just Called to Say I Love You
(Snippet With Detroit Personalization)

Pastime Paradise

Summer Soft
restarted because Stevie's "throat broke"

Ordinary Pain

Saturn

Ebony Eyes

2nd Set

Isn't She Lovely

Joy Inside My Tears

Black Man

All Day Sucker

Easy Goin' Evening (My Mama's Call)

Killer Joe/The Star Spangled Banner
(with horn section solos)

People Get Ready
(The Impressions cover)

Ngiculela - Es Una Historia - I Am Singing

If It's Magic

As

Another Star

Respect
(Aretha Franklin cover) (sung by Stevie and the audience for Aretha Franklin, who was in attendance)

Intermission
(DJ Tick Tick Boom)

Encore

Medley: Do I Do / My Cherie Amour / Signed, Sealed, Delivered / Living For The City / Higher Ground

Superstition



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2015-11-23 17:36 by tatters.

"We're jammin' in this Motown city, we're jammin' in Detroit!"

[youtu.be]

People overuse the phrase 'musical genius,' but Stevie's certainly one. He may be the best songwriter alive.

Quote
gimmelittledrink
People overuse the phrase 'musical genius,' but Stevie's certainly one. He may be the best songwriter alive.

In terms of a combination of critical acclaim and commercial success; 25 grammy awards, over 100 million records sold, 30 top 10 hits, and 10 #1 hits, he's pretty much unrivaled. I think it was Paul Simon who, after winning the grammy for album of the year, thanked Stevie Wonder for not making an album that year.

His career does have some interesting parallels with that of the Rolling Stones in that they each had two distinctly different classic eras. They both had their "hit singles" era in the sixties (Uptight, released in Nov. '65 when Stevie was just 15, was Motown's answer to Satisfaction), and then, as they matured and turned their focus to making LPs, they each produced a "grand slam" of four consecutive stellar albums. As the Stones had Beggars, LIB, Sticky and Exile, Stevie had Talking Book, Innervisions, Fulfillingness First Finale and Songs In the Key of Life. The only reason Stevie peaked a few years later than Mick and Keith was because he was younger than they were.



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 2015-11-23 22:38 by tatters.