Diana Ross, a true musical and cultural icon who has been gracing the Billboard charts for sixty years, lit up Radio City Music Hall with her ineffable presence on Thursday (July 29).
Ross has been releasing music longer than the last three headliners of the iconic New York City venue have been alive, but while watching her captivate a sold-out room of 6,000 fans, you wouldn’t know it. Her voice remains as nuanced and expressive as ever, and as if to show off her undiminished pipes, she performed segments of several songs with minimal support from her band and no backing vocalists (hey – if you got it, flaunt it).
The same exacting standards that Ross applies to herself extended to her band, the venue (“I gotta get a better mix up here,” she chided the sound team at one point, causing the crowd to make the sort of oooooh noise you hear when someone is called to the principal’s office in high school) and even her audience. “You know I’m 79 years old, right?” she asked the crowd while gliding across the stage. “This is audience participation — not TV where you watch the screen.” (For what it’s worth, most of the fans – even those north of 80 — we’re already dancing in their seats at that point; the stragglers certainly started pulling their weight after that feedback.)
A glorious, soaring rendition of her Billboard Hot 100-topping cover of “Ain’t No Mountain High” enough was about as heavenly it gets, and Stans of The Supremes were well-served by the four classics (“Come See About Me,” “Reflections,” “You Can’t Hurry Love” and “Love Child”) she doled out at the top of the show. Those whose entry point for her rich catalog was The Wiz were treated to “Home” and a bubbly “Ease on Down the Road,” and there were more than a few surprises to keep things interesting for longtime supporters.
Noting that it was called The Music Legacy Tour because she was dusting off selections that don’t often make her touring set list, Ross delivered not one, not two but three selections from Lady Sings the Blues (“Fine and Mellow,” “Don’t Explain” and “God Bless the Child,” the lattermost of which she rarely performs live), demonstrating exactly why her performance as jazz pioneer Billie Holiday received an Oscar nod. “Here’s one we haven’t done in a while, it’s kinda fresh for us, maybe you recognize it,” she said before jumping into a funky “Mirror, Mirror”; she introduced “I’m Still Waiting” by hailing it as “a No. 1 in Japan” that “we normally don’t do.” Even so, the rarities weren’t exactly obscurities; both of those were released as singles and hit the Hot 100, with the former even becoming a top 10 hit. Still, having benched those songs for many of her concerts, Ross seemed to relish the chance to mix things up.
Ross also offered the crowd some reflections on her life during the pandemic, and how it led to her latest album, 2021’s Thank You. “I thought, ‘If I can’t get on the road – if you’re gonna stop me from going on the road and saying hello to you and visiting – then maybe I can go in the studio and record some new songs,’” she shared. “We made this new album and the album is really dedicated to each and every one of you. It is about gratitude. The title of the album is Thank You. For me, I got a chance to really look at what is important in my life, and I noticed I needed very little to be happy: I just needed to be with you, I needed to make sure I was in good health. We all were in the same place thinking about our futures.”
Ross’ future finds her performing two more shows in the States before hopping over to Europe, with her website promising “more dates to be added.” As she gracefully enters the next chapter of her remarkable life, Ross shows no signs of slowing down, and the quality of this tour is a testament to her timeless talent.
