Well, Miss Tina Turner was all that and more last night down at Arco Arena in Sacramento. (http://www.livedaily.com/blog/2810.html click link for some terrifics photos; unfortunately hyperlink not available. )It was an elegant show, born of 50 years in rock and roll, that blew the doors off the joint holding 15,000 roaring, dancing, talking sass with TINA fans, alive with the joy and the serenity that these days is Tina Turner.

There was a fabulous array of glittery, glitzy, sexy, sexy costumes that were, in the final analysis, nothing but elegant. Her hair was new and all Tina: edgy, raw and feminine. She's lost her dance moves but still prowls the stage with the elegance of a ballet dancer, wearing four inch Jimmy Choos at the end of legs not not even time dares to compromise. But it's her music and her songs, her pure expression that stands as Mozart in the face of everything else to come that stirs and churns my soul still. Tina Turner is that brave, joyous person that still exists in us all. After all this time. Fifty years!

She opened both set with Beatles songs--unusual moments for Tina Turner fans-- and in the second set gave great props to the Stones, her road buddies from the early days. She flashed photos of her career above the stage and was generous in her acknowledgment of Ike despite their abusive marriage. Her spirit is so round, so full, so complete now it becomes the perfect platter to serve her music up on, this driving, edgy, soulful music that has a big bad range, still. She can reach down into her deep, bluesy gut and deliver the gritty brutal honesty of many of life's lonelier moments with "And this ain't how I thought it'd be" and then stare off into the second balcony and deliver "I don't care who's right or wrong" in a manner with sweetness and softness that makes you turn to the person sitting next to you and apologize for everything and beg for forgiveness, even though you've never met them. This girl has the music of lifetimes and lifetimes and lifetimes.

I'd be remiss if I didn't talk about the dancers. She went with the one year olds. The fillies, all legs and manes. They were awesome. The ninjas, the boys dancers, came along for the ride, too. Justice from American Gladiators was riding shotgun to keep an eye on the ninjas. Great Cirque du Soleil 'Love' - type moments with the wild, rowdy guys with crazy moves smacking into the brick wall of authority in the incredibly flexible, agile, hulking stone pillar that is Justice. Dance sequences were fabulous. Band was hard driving, superb guitar and nothing but rock and roll.

It was a night for the Best Ofs book that I will surely write someday. It was a night that I never could have imagined when I first danced to Tina and Ike after study table back at the Pi Phi house down in Moscow, Idaho. It was a night I will imagine again and think about again and again; with complete joy and serenity. Still.


JBelle
Bellemaison
The 'Kan EWA