Author: Abby Graham
Last Monday night, I was lucky enough to go to the Lionel Richie and Earth, Wind & Fire show at Climate Pledge last night. Doors were at 6:30, EW&F went on at 7:30, Lionel came out at 9:05 and the whole thing didn’t wrap till almost 10:40. It was A LOT of show. BUT it was worth every minute.
EW&F opened with Shining Star, which is just an insane way to start a concert, the hit song from Minions: Rise Of The Gru. Then it was Let Your Feelings Show, System of Survival, Serpentine Fire, Sing a Song, they did a Beatles cover (Got to Get You Into My Life) which I wasn’t expecting but it worked, then Reasons, After the Love Has Gone, That’s the Way of the World, Fantasy, Boogie Wonderland, Let’s Groove, and they closed with September because they were definitely going to sing THE song about September.
BUT, let’s talk about the actual star of their set which wasNOT even Earth, Wind, and Fire. It was the tambourine guy. I don’t know his name, I wish I did, because he was carrying the whole vibe. He kept throwing the tambourine up in the air really high mid song and just catching it. Like it was nothing. He kept playing like it was a totally normal thing to do with your hands.I spent 60% of their set staring at how high he was tossing the tambourine in the air.
Also can we talk about the jazz fingers. The second any song hit, every single person around me just started doing jazz fingers, completely unprompted. I assume it’s like a fan type thing, but it was so sweet.
Now onto Lionel Richie! He opened with Hello (obviously) then went into Running With the Night, Easy, Stuck on You, Sail On, You Are, Dancing on the Ceiling (he snuck a little bit of Jump by Van Halen in there which was random but funny), Three Times a Lady, then did this whole medley of Fancy Dancer / Sweet Love / Lady (You Bring Me Up), then Lady which was like a virtual duet thing with Kenny Rogers on the screen which got me a little emotional not gonna lie, Endless Love, a Brick House / Fire mashup, Say You Say Me, We Are the World, and then came back out for All Night Long as the encore because OF COURSE he did.
But, the talking in between songs might have been my favorite part of the whole night. He would NOT stop cracking jokes. At one point he just went on this whole random tangent about Luke Bryan and electrolytes that made zero sense and had me (the biggest Luke Bryan fan) and the entire arena dying laughing. He also brought up how people online keep comparing him to Usher, and he seemed like half offended, half honored by it, mainly because he then dances to an Usher song. It was very funny watching him process that live on stage. The man is 77 years old and clearly having the time of his life up there, like genuinely just focused on his electrolytes.
But at the beginning of the concert, get this: I’m going through the bag check thing and the security lady asks how old I am and I say 22 and she looked at me like I had two heads. Like FULLY shocked that a 22 year old would be this into 70s/80s funk and jazz. And like, fair? But also, I will say a decent chunk of why I know so many of these songs is because of the Minions and Trolls movies lol. No shame. Apparently watching those as a teen basically doubled as a music education because I knew way more words than I expected to last night.
They’ve still got San Francisco, Palm Desert, LA, Phoenix, and Austin left before it wraps up. If it’s coming anywhere near you just go. Last night was such a good reminder that some songs just don’t have an expiration date, they’re just built to be sung all night long lol.
Abby Graham | Digital Media Director