Stevie (was) Wonder(ful)

How’s that for a bad quip?

So while George made the news by getting himself arrested again (don’t even get me started…), I found myself a few yards from the legend Stevie Wonder. It took a while to just realise that I was that close to the-one-and-only. It was even more surreal than seeing George for the first time.

He was guided out onto the stage by his daughter (the long-legged thing next to him in the picture to the right) and during the first half they did a lot of jammin’ and I have to admit that many of the songs were unknown to me. Although, obviously, I did recognise “Knocks Me Off My Feet” after about 20 minutes. We also had a few examples of the power he had over the audience. He did some truly ridiculous “repeat after me” stuff that made it quite clear he was taking the piss – but the thing is, if Stevie says jump, you jump. He was laughing his head off on several occasions, laughing at his own jokes and being quite adorable, really.

At one point he used a vocoder and did “Norwegian Wood” – funny.

He joked more and more with the audience and after his daughter did a song, and the audience went wild (in my humble opinion, nothing wrong with her voice but if she wasn’t Ms Wonder Jr…) he went, “Wow, wow, wow, woooow there… that’s just a bit too much.” Adding that he was, obviously, joking and how proud he was of his offspring, blah blah. His mood got better and better, and in between campaigning for Obama (he actually got the audience to sing Baaaaaaarack Obaaaaaama…)(which was hilarious, more than anything), he made dry jokes about his background. At one point he said, “I want you to sing with me”, someone shouted something and he goes, “Did someone just say no? You don’t mess with me, I’m from Detroit! Stevie from the hooood.”

The 2nd half was a real hit-parade. “Isn’t she lovely”, “Uptight”, “Signed, sealed, delivered…”, “I just called…”, “Living for the city”, “Sir Duke”, “As”, “Superstition”… you name it, really. He left out “Pastime Paradise” and I missed “Blame it on the sun”, but other than that, I was pretty much out-Wondered by the time we headed home at 11.30pm after 2 hours and 20 minutes. He even took over as bass-player and drummer(!) for a bit. Quite impressive too, especially on them drums!! The man can’t see!

Stevie Wonder is all smiles, teeth, perfect pitch, dry humour and charm – and it wasn’t really any question whether it was worth it. So now I can cross another one off my artists to see live before I die list.