Venue:
Bristol Beacon
Date: 08/07/2024
As every right thinking person knows … Midnight Train To Georgia is the greatest single ever. That, of course, was the closing song of an astonishing performance from Gladys Knight – now 80 years old!
Her voice remains powerful and clear although she’s not moving so well now.
No Pips anymore but a trio of women singing backing vocals. Bass, guitar, percussion, drums (to my ears too loud) and two keyboard players. All excellently done and that voice sailing over it all.
I’m really pleased I went. Expected to be a bit disappointed – lots of ballads, voice a bit gone – but far from it. A joyous experience.
The audience:
Happy
It made me think..
I’m happy – and that’s all you really want!
Sounds like a great gig and I agree that MTTG is one of the great singles, although I would have been quite happy if she had left her Pips at home that day.
I love the fact that it was originally called the somewhat less evocative Midnight Plane to Houston. I’ve been on a midnight plane to Houston and there was nothing wistful about it, being full of MAGA oil-drilling contractors (It never got there. Got turned around by a hurricane).
I guess I shared your prejudice about the Pips, until having to do a depth piece about the song. My prejudice was for, and it expanded to include all Tamla Motown besuited and twirling singing groups/backing singers. I grew out of that, if still questioning the actual point of the Pips, the Drells, the Vandellas, even. But listen to the Pips, in isolation if you can, and they offer a joyous masterclass in how to embellish the lead vocal. Consummate!
The Pips are crucial to the song. Without their less than serious interventions, it would be a very bleak song about being in love with a loser. Those spins, train whistle woo-woos, and light-hearted interventions, “superstar – but he didn’t get far!” give a humanity, an approachability, that makes the song listenable to this day.
Richard Pryor used The Pips in a comedy sketch, just the boys doing the spins, pulling the whistle and singing the backing. Gladys wasn’t there and no-one stood in for her. It’s funny.
She’d have been perfect for the legends slot at Glastonbury.
Most definitely.
Is it really her farewell tour? I saw her five years ago and she was magnificent (goodness, those years have gone by so fast!). Sounds as though she still is.
The backing band was stiff and unsympathetic… as I realised when I went back to listen to the original recordings. And too many UK hits remained unvisited in a set of barely an hour.
But yes, she is no Biden in the vocal department – thank God.
I’d likely have risked this gig if I’d known about it! Midnight Train is, as you say, RIGHT UP THERE.
Was the gig sold out? We were at the Beacon a few weeks back and the place was uncomfortably rammed to the rafters, where we sat. We both got Covid 36 hours later, so we’ve vowed never to go there again – hope you are OK?
Covid 36! OMG – that’s nearly twice as many as 19!
(Serious remark: hope your Covid wasn’t too bad and you’re both fine now VV).
Could be worse, COVID 72 is twice as bad again
I watched at the roomy Bournemouth BIC. Plenty of space due crazy high ticket prices (and maybe too many farewell tours😁)
Several points to respond to.
The Pips were absolutely an essential part of everything and are much missed. The backing singers at the gig were great but without the movement there is definitely something missing.
The Beacon was full as far as I could see – but no symptoms so far!!
There was certainly stiffness in Gladys’s joints and to some extent in the band. I’ve said I thought the drums were too loud and there’s almost always a problem in using keyboards to cover strings and brass.
My view is you can do string parts well enough on a keyboard but I’ve never heard brass done convincingly like that.
All that being said, it was Gladys, her voice and her palpable sense of joy in what she was doing that made it a night to remember – in fact ……
Memories may be beautiful and yet
What’s too painful to remember
We simply choose to forget
So it’s the laughter we will remember …..
Agree with all that Mr bs7. We saw her at the legendary Cliffs Pavilion here in sunny Southend. She was much better 5 years ago in the RAH (probably the lack of proper horns) but she sure can still sing.
No encore was refreshing, too.