Tina Turner/Lionel Richie
Lionel Richie paused after “Stuck on You” during his set Friday night to joke that fans of his ballads usually got engaged, got married, or got in a whole lot of trouble while listening to his songs. He left out “fell asleep.” Okay, cheap shot, but Richie chose to focus his energy on the drippier portion of his catalog. Sure, “Running with the Night” and “Dancing on the Ceiling” both sounded boomer booty calls (and pointed to a great lost trend in song titles, the verb-preposition-object form that is the antecedent of “Sweatin’ to the Oldies”; Richie should make a comeback with “Aging on the Promenade Deck”). But most of Richie’s 11-song show was coated in heavy syrup and served with a smile. “Easy” and “Three Times a Lady” in particular lacked impetus.
Tina Turner, on the other hand, will be dead 10 years before she lacks impetus. Slipping her 61-year-old body into multiple spaghetti-strapped and/or leather outfits and her voice into nearly 20 songs, the singer came on with Olympic force. Pacing her soul-UFO stage set with feline aggression, Turner ripped into the expected highlights — “River Deep, Mountain High,” “Proud Mary,” “Private Dancer” — almost as though she had something to prove. By the home stretch, Turner even achieved the impossible by making the Robert Palmer sex-stomp “Addicted to Love” seem hyperkinetic.
Turner de-emphasized her recent catalog, offering only a few selections from her latest disc and nothing from its predecessor. Covers of “Help,” “Try a Little Tenderness,” and “Let’s Stay Together” were clean and proper, in addition to being better songs than Turner’s hired guns have been turning out for her. The night’s best surprise was a randy version of the Who’s “Acid Queen,” which she performed against a projection of her 1975take on it for the movie Tommy.
The band worked anonymously, replicating the album cuts accurately and with high-dollar flash. The music wasn’t the point, though; Turner is the last working diva with personality enough to match her gutbucket voice, and on what she says is her last full-scale tour, the night was more Essentially Tina than essential Tina. The songs were conduits for the typhoon gale of Turner’s presence, something the mostly middle-aged audience picked up and responded to heartily.
It’s too bad Richie didn’t join Turner onstage, but then he would’ve required a gurney to leave it, given the fury of Turner’s performance. If she ever settles into the less-strenuous rhythm of instantly-recognizable singer, rather than that of manic celebrity, Turner will have transcended the star turns of this period in her long career. Until then, the ride is more fun than the music.
