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Tina Turner, Gelredome, The Netherlands TINA STILL SIMPLY THE BEST Thank goodness! Even Tina Turner is human. When the curtains open up again, at the second part of her comeback concert, the super granny of rock is swaying calmly while sitting on a stool. Turner’s voice still sounds full, toned and is smoot yet raspy. During the first part of her show last Saturday she had been running around like an athlete who’s desperately training for an Olympic record, but now – after a 30 minute break, recovering in her dressing room – it’s time to do things a bit more quietly. However, what she shows before, and especially after this acoustic part, verges on the impossible. To those who expect her to offer her audience a night of worn out rock, Turner shows the absolute opposite. The short glitter robes, the steaming dance steps and wildly swinging arms, and the high heals below her shiny stockings: they’re all there, and all are still in perfect/top shape. Along with her four dancers – probably a third her own age – Turner is shaking her hips and bosom so vigorously, it makes you think this woman is still doing lots of exercise every morning, in her little palace near Zürich. But the most exquisite thing about this woman, who’s comeback had for long seem improbable to many people, is undoubtedly her voice. It still sounds so full, toned and smooth yet raspy. The Beatles’ Help offers her every opportunity to give the people an outstanding vocal performance, and she takes it completely/utterly/with both hands. She sparkles/shines as a grandmother at her first grandchild’s birthday, evades not one single vocal ‘punch’ (high note), and easily surpasses the present (and preceding) generation of Tina’s, as Beyoncé, Jennifer Hudson and Janet Jackson. One can’t say whether it’s because of the DVD recordings – which at her personal request take place in The Netherlands – but at the Gelredome stadium Turner is absolutely giving the audience everything she’s got. There seem to be no limits/nothing seems too much for her during her ‘signature hit’ Proud Mary. In addition, although Creedence Clearwater Revival’s John Fogerty originally wrote the song, Turner’s steamy soul version of it is probably the best one ever done. It’s presumably the final of a two hour long second set, which makes her audience feeling most nostalgic, with covers of Robert Palmer’s Addicted to Love, Al Green’s Let’s Stay Together, and the Rolling Stones’ evergreens Jumping Jack Flash and It’s Only Rock ‘n Roll. With Turner, a last song is still like an old-fashioned ‘grand finale’. For Proud Mary she takes no less than ten minutes, full of screaming saxophones, flashing spotlights and an vigorous series of bows/curtsies. In addition, as one can expect from someone like Turner, what follows is an encore in style: the semi-autobiographical Nut bush City Limits, about the little village in Tennessee where she grew up, in a time much of her fans’ parents were not even thinking of having children. Now her most devoted fans, most of them in their forties and fifties, see Turner as they like her best: while walking on a catwalk that extends from the stage and waving over the audience, Turner is trembling with her ‘exploded hair dryer wig’ and is at such a close distance people can almost touch her. Of course Turner is not a 20 year old pop princess any more, but by smartly dosing her powers/energy, choosing the finest musicians a singer can have (for example John ‘Music Was My First Love’ Miles, who is for now acting as a humble rhythm guitar player) and interweaving a placid/quiet coffee break, she keeps herself standing in a football stadium for no less than three hours. Inevitably, of course, shortly before the end of the concert, she performs one of her greatest hits: The Best. A song, which seldom sounded so full of life, and marks the conclusion of the night, in her genre, Turner is still simply the best. She’s a phenomenon who very professionally transforms all doubts about her interrupted retirement into a cordial advice: run for those last tickets for the (very last?) Tina concert on 2 May. |
