Tina Turner's still simply the best after 50 years
IF, in touring terms, Tina Turner is on her last legs, they are still some legs.
The soul queen, 69 next month, returned to live action in Chicago at the weekend at the start of her comeback world trek.
Eight years after her farewell global outing on the Twenty Four Seven tour, she reclaimed her throne with a performance to kick all soundalikes into the sidelines.
The itinerary that rolls out over the next six months will surely be the last chance to see a truly iconic figure on this scale and her two-hour show made a high-octane, high-heeled nonsense of her age.
Turner was coaxed back by her friend Sophia Loren. Since she opted not to make a new record this time, these shows stand or fall on the strength of a legacy born on the road almost exactly 50 years ago.
She was among friends in Chicago with 18,000 fans young and old. As the curtains opened, Turner stood atop a raised gantry with four girl dancers below.
The show is cleverly tailored to her advancing years, but she still has endless raw power to burn. She was dressed in a glittering black two-piece, the first of several creations by Bob Mackie, the American “sultan of sequins” famous for his costumes for Cher.
Tina may have added the odd pound but Steamy Windows was an appropriate opener because she still looked and sounded impossibly raunchy.
“I am also very happy to see you,” she beamed, before an early trip to her 1960s roots with River Deep Mountain High. Turner has reconvened her faithful band and they recreated a bulging catalogue of hits like they’d never been gone.
She reappeared in an extravagant red gown for Acid Queen, her gloriously trashy alter ego from The Who’s Tommy film. Then, in a short red skirt few grandmothers could get away with, she strutted playfully through What’s Love Got To Do With It and a full-scale recreation of her Mad Max character for We Don’t Need Another Hero.
The anthems kept coming in the second half, which started with a low-key acoustic presentation including Help and Let’s Stay Together.
As the crowd swayed adoringly, she raced to the finishing line with a Rolling Stones montage (co-starring their backing vocalist Lisa Fischer) and an opulent 007 set for Goldeneye.
Simply The Best and Proud Mary rocked the house before a visually- stunning finale right out of the Stones’ box of tricks, created like the whole lavish affair by their set designer Mark Fisher.
She stood like a ship’s captain on the prow of a long gantry that swung into the audience as she cheer-led them through Nutbush City Limits.
Tina Turner’s Live In Concert tour plays the UK from March 3, 2009.
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