United Center- Chicago, IL
October 3rd, 2008
By Anthony Kuzminski
Amidst the roars of over 17,000 fans, Tina Turner and her thirteen backing musicians and dancers are stylishly swinging and swaying their hips and arms back and forth as a preamble to Turner’s signature song, “Proud Mary”. What makes this so invigorating is Turner’s ability to will an audience with the snap of her fingers. She isn’t a great performer…she is the consummate performer that everyone else is compared to. The sultry and sexy notes of “Proud Mary” are reserved at first, before the call-to-arms roaring finale which proves to be sexy as it is salacious. Turner’s roaring delivery of “Proud Mary” is in the pantheons of rock history and the performance I am witnessed is no different. By the songs conclusion, Tina Turner proved to the sold-out crowd that she always has been, continues to be and will forever be the Queen of rhythm, blues, soul and rock n’ roll. She is unsurpassed fifty years into her career and is not resting on her legacy; over the course of two-hours on only the second date of her world tour, Tina Turner proved to Chicago that she is every bit as good as she has ever been.Moments before Turner took to the stage at the United Center in Chicago, a flurry of exhilaration shot through the crowd as Tom Cruise and Oprah Winfrey took their seats. Even though the crowd was awe-struck at the celebrities in their presence, nothing could steal the thunder from the one and only Tina Turner. The show would be only the second date of Turner’s tour, but you never would have guessed as the show feels like it’s been on the road for a year. In truth, Turner has been doing this for fifty years and this performance was no different than any of the others in her career; she worked the stage as a consummate professional and poured herself into the performance in a way someone four-decades younger could only dream of. It’s one thing to sing and perform, but can you make the crowd believers? As her and Ike’s cover of “Get Back” cranked on the sound system, a red curtain separated to reveal Turner on a platform sixty feet in the air. For over two hours (which included a thirty-minute intermission) Turner excelled and exceeded all expectations. For someone who will turn seventy in less than fourteen months, she defied the naysayers and proved she embodies the spirit of rock n’ roll better than performers fifty-years younger. As she tore through the opening of “Steamy Windows” and “Typical Male” it was evident that she would manage stunts and moves that I couldn’t manage in my wildest dreams, in heels no less.
While the evening was high on gloss and sheen, it was implemented with precision and featured wildly passionate performances that made you shake your head at how staggering it all was. During “Better Be Good To Me” Turner’s energy level was surging and the crowd became intoxicated by it. She proved to be prevailing and persuasive as she seduced the audience with a raw primal energy she is known for. Even the polished pop of her eighties hits (“What You Get Is What You See” & “What’s Love Got To Do With It”) were delivered with primordial instincts that separate themselves from other pop numbers from a decade of excess. The theatrics were mouth gaping as they surpassed even the greatest Vegas spectacular. Top tier productions of “Acid Queen” (featuring Turner in a sexy red dress), “We Don’t Need Another Hero” (in full-on Beyond Thunderdome regalia) and “Golden Eye” from the James Bond film of the same title proved to be more than just staging exercises. The stage had hidden treats and instead of merely being eye candy, it had you guessing continually as to what it would reveal. There were dresses, short skirts, the highest of high heels, four backing dancers (nicknamed by Turner as “The Flowers”) with barely an inch of clothing to them and yet none of it seemed excessive or over the top because Turner always brought things full circle and reminded everyone that this was about the music.
The show was split into two halves; the first was a tour de force dance workout and the second half (which still had a dash of Vegas splash) was more about revealing her rhythm, rock and soul background. The second set opened with an acoustic set featuring the blues drenched “Undercover Agent of the Blues”, a gospel soul rendition of the Beatles “Help”, an undeniable “I Can’t Stand The Rain” and a tender rendition of Al Green’s “Let’s Stay Together”. Turner is a wondrous interpreter of songs and provides new dimensions to these songs. She executes these numbers with such conviction that she would have you believe that she wrote these songs. On each and every song, she brings fifty years of history with her to the stage. She puts herself in the song and it’s not just an exercise for her to make money. She’s lived through the good and bad times and manages to find a way to delicately exude this every night.Her backing dancers were among the sexiest women I have ever laid eyes on and from what my wife told me, they were the topic of discussion in the bathroom during intermission (“How do they keep their asses that small?”). However, despite this, the sexiest woman to grace the stage was Ms. Turner herself. She hit the stage and for over two-hours provided nothing other than pure heart and soul. She exudes unadulterated confidence in not just her craft but in herself as well and this is far sexier than any twenty-something woman in a scantily clad outfit. Her seven piece band was spot on and spectacular, as were her two backing singers (including Lisa Fisher best known for her work with the Rolling Stones). As Turner tore through a roaring “Jumpin’ Jack Flash/ It’s Only Rock N’ Roll”, the indomitable “Addicted To Love” and the dangerously fixating “Nutbush City Limits” she hit her stride. Her hips shook like Jagger; she mugged better than Madonna and commanded all eyes on her in a way Britney Spears could only dream; because all of them stole their moves from her. She’s the pioneer of performers and proved that fifty-years down the line, there’s plenty all of them could still learn from her. There is a primordial sexual intensity that can’t be taught or taken. She oozes with confidence and this in turn makes her far sexier than any pop starlet who thinks sex is about a full reveal. She roamed the stage in heels the entire evening. What differentiates Tina Turner from current pop starlets is that she is a survivor. People look at Turner, see her perform and feel like she is a saint of sorts. They view her as a role model to believe in. If she can survive the hardships of life and not just survive, but thrive…then “so can I” they think.
I watched Oprah Winfrey cheer like a giddy school girl thrusting her arms to the air while jumping with exuberant joy. Only something that profoundly moves you could do this. What Oprah and 17,000 other discovered was how the power of a live music performance can transform your soul for not just one night, but a lifetime. Music can be meditative and provides you with an outlet of hope where tomorrow is always better. Even though we may seek out that pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, we may not always find it. The key is to realize that it may be empty and that’s OK. Watching Turner sway her arms, hips, legs and high heeled feet like an otherworldly presence is a reminder to have confidence in ourselves to continually seek out a better tomorrow. The music stars of today barely can create enough songs to be remembered five years from now, let alone fifty. Watching Turner on that concert stage was revelatory as she showed everyone how it is done. As she strutted across the stage singing her biggest international hit, “The Best”, it’s hard to imagine anyone doing what Turner does half as well. When it comes to performing you can put everyone into two distinct categories; 1) Tina Turner and 2) Everyone else. Excuse the cliché, but as she sung with an indomitable vocal and arm thrust to the air during the chorus of “The Best” and the entire audience followed, she proved without a doubt that she is indeed…simply the best.
