HIGH EYEBROW ARCH – ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
The mood in the Star Event Centre is joyful. Several thousand people crammed together, in tight rows, like Southern Appalachian Brook Trout. Joyful but expectant.
One by one they enter the stage.
Three back-up singers.
Two guitarists.
One drummer and one keyboardist.
Followed by a soulful beat. Or two.
Then she enters the stage. The Empress of Soul. Ms Gladys Knight!
A musical legend stands right there before us, dressed in midnight blue. Mere metres from where we sit in row B. Her effervescent smile fills the room.
Hollerin’ and hootin’ erupts from behind where we sit. Shouts of “I love you!” float towards the stage. Gladys waves and replies “I heard that! And I love you too!”.
She may be turning 80 later this year – and she may have required a young man to walk her from the wings – but soon Ms Knight is strutting around the stage, singing soulfully. Living every note. Meaning every word of every lyric. She’s authentic. Communicating every emotion she’s feeling with an inflection in her voice or a curl of her eyebrows. Her voice remains rich despite her age.
She’s been doing this since she was 4 years old. Yet she still demonstrates more soul when she pops her left shoulder then most of our contemporary starlets will ever know.
Gladys opens with Taste of Bitter Love, marks the mid-point of her show with Licence to Kill and brings it home with Heard it on the Grapevine, The Way We Were and her classic, Midnight Train to Georgia.
And then she’s gone. The young man helps her from the stage. She stoops to collect some flowers from a devotee in the first row whilst the young man holds her elbow. She waves goodbye. She dabs her eyes with a tissue. The joyful audience is on its feet, screaming words of love and bidding her farewell.
When I first saw that Gladys Knight was touring Australia, I immediately agreed to go and see her. Even now, I can’t really explain my eagerness. I’m not sure I even knew which songs she was famous for singing. But I knew she was a legend. One of the last of her generation – born before the civil rights movement, raised during segregation – who is still performing.
I’m glad I made that quick decision. Seeing Gladys Knight perform was a true privilege. A Knight I’ll never forget.
For more information on Gladys Knight’s Farewell Tour:
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