Editor’s note: This concert review ran in the Times Union on Sept. 24, 2000. Tina Turner died Tuesday, May 24 at the age of 83.
ALBANY — It’s a sad season indeed for pop music, as two of its incomparable divas are performing live for the last time. Barbra Streisand has said that last week’s Los Angeles concerts and those this week in New York City will be her final shows, and Tina Turner, who pulled a capacity crowd into the Pepsi Arena Saturday night, has said she too is retiring from the concert stage after the current tour. If they’ve gotta go, and they say they do, you can be sure these two amazing women are going to go out with style. The reviews for Streisand were ecstatic, as was the response to Turner on Saturday. She deserved every scream, every blown kiss, every adoring look aimed at her during the course of a two-hour, 20-song show that traced the highlights of her career.
Hits? Oh, yeah. Count ’em off, from the early to those contained on her latest release, “Twenty Four Seven”: the saucy ’60s sounds of “Fool in Love,” the towering drama of “River Deep, Mountain High,” the beseeching and demands of “Better Be Good to Me” and “Try a Little Tenderness” and, of course, big anthems like “We Don’t Need Another Hero,” “Private Dancer” and “What’s Love Got to Do With It?”
And “Proud Mary.” There had been fireworks all night, of both the vocal and literal kind, but they went up in magnitudes of intensity when the explosions detonated at the front of the stage prior to “Proud Mary” and out of Turner’s legendary pipes during the song.
Turner sometimes covers a tune with such distinctiveness that, as you’re listening to her sing, it seems inconceivable that the song ever sounded any different. (The same’s true for Joe Cocker, albeit less often, as he showed during his thrilling opening-set rendition of “With a Little Help From My Friends.”) This talent for Turnering a song was most evident during the final third of the concert, when she rendered exquisite versions, one after another, of songs as varied as “Help” (yes, that “Help”), “(Sittin’ on the) Dock of the Bay,” “Steamy Windows” and “Addicted to Love.”
Costumes? Oh, yeah, too: five or six from Turner, ranging from a torn-sleeved, martial-shouldered coat reminiscent of “Mad Max” (for “Hero”) to what looked like black overalls reimagined by Donna Karan to the de rigueur black leather miniskirt. (The quintet of two backup singers and a trio of dancers had even more resplendent outfits, including little rubbery numbers hued somewhere between fuchsia and magenta.)
Joe Cocker isn’t one for stage theatrics, but he sure can rock the house, even after howling as he has for 30 years. Somehow, the man can still let loose with his signature scream — it’s liked a ragged-edged factory steam whistle — as he did repeatedly during his hour-plus set that featured a baker’s dozen of old hits, plus a few new songs from his “No Ordinary World” release. Like Turner, Cocker works his heart out, and his passions manifest themselves in head twitches and fingers that flutter as if he’s a mad castanet player. He can hit a song as hard as Mark McGwire does a baseball, but he isn’t only a bruiser: “You Are So Beautiful” retains its gorgeous delicacy, any minor diminishment of the high notes more than offset by the wisdom of a life lived hard.
Four years older than Cocker, Turner at age 60 remains marvelous both vocally and physically — so much so that it’s tough to say whether it’s more remarkable that she can still sing so spellbindingly or that she remains tremendously fit enough to keep up with dancers one-third her age.
Not that it matters. What matters is that this is the kind of rock ‘n’ roll that takes people beyond happiness to rapture. Turner may be retiring from the stage, but between the permance of her recordings and the evocative power of the memories she leaves us, she’ll be around for years to come.
FACTS:CONCERT REVIEW TINA TURNER with Joe Cocker When: 7:30 p.m. SaturdayWhere: Pepsi Arena, AlbanyMusical highlights: Turner’s magnificent versions of “River Deep, Mountain High,” “Fool in Love” and “Try a Little Tenderness”; Cocker raising the roof (very nearly the dead, too) with “You Can Leave Your Hat On` and `With a Little Help From My Friends.” The crowd: Full right up to the rafters — 13,000-plus — and diverse across ages, races and social backgrounds. Last time in town: Turner headlined a super show at the Saratoga Performing Arts Center a couple of summers back with an excellent (and very pregnant) Cyndi Lauper.