So, what did you do last night?

Oh?  That’s nice.

Me?  Why, thanks for asking.  I went to the Tina Turner concert.  And I have to tell you, it was….AWE-some!

Yes, I know that seems a little cornball, but I’ve sort of had a thing for Tina over the last couple of decades.  When I was teaching in Mississippi I got a hold  of a life size Tina Turner stand up from her Legg’s Pantyhose Wildest Dreams Tour.  I put it on my classroom door with a sign that said:  “Room 301 – Simply the Best.”  Of course, since it was Mississippi I had to make a longer skirt out of butcher paper for her.  That much leg was deemed a little indecent in the Bible Belt,

So, Tina and I go way back.  Sure, she turns 70 tomorrow, but I got to see her on stage when she was just a spry 69 year old.  What could be better?  So, without further ado, let me share with you some of my observations from the evening.  It will almost be like you were there, but not really.

• Tina is 69, but seems like she’s half that age.  Most of her fans are 6o something and several had to bring oxygen tanks.  It was fascinating.  I probably wasn’t the youngest person there, (I’m sure someone brought their grandkids), but I may have been the youngest person who bought their own ticket.  I’d say that the average age in my section was about 60.  But everyone acted like a bunch of kids.  The arena rung with the same cheering, thunder, whoops, and stomping that you might hear from a group of 30 year olds, but everyone was able to get a senior citizen coffee at McDonalds on the way home.   My favorite recollection was a 60 year old woman a few rows ahead of me who may or may not have been Nancy Pelosi.  She gingerly held onto the elbow of a lady, who appeared to be her mother, and helped her stand up.  Then, while supporting her, they both extended their fists and punched the air during Private Dancer.

• How do I know the crowd was old?  The last concert I went to was sponsored by Budwesier or Red Bull or something.  This concert was sponsored by Amway and Nutrilife Vitamin supplements.  Before each half of the concert, there was an ad featuring silver haired couples selling toilet paper. 

• I may have never been to a concert that had such a wonderfully diverse crowd.  The split was about even between black and white and clearly a good chunk of the crowd had decided to make a night of it.  There were women in furs and sequined blouses, Men in fedoras and suits, but there were also couples in blue jeans and Sears sweater sets and men wearing Tina concert Ts from 20 years ago when they actually fit.  (funny story:  At my first Tina concert 15 years ago or so, I bought this totally awesome, totally tacky t-shirt.  On the front there was a picture of Tina from the waist up.  On the back it was just Tina from the waist down in a pair of cut off shorts showing off  those beautiful legs.  It would be hard to describe to you how much my wife hated that shirt.  Oddly enough it disappeared somewhere around our last move)

• The souvenir stand was interesting.  And not just because baseball caps were $40.  In addition to T-shirts and mugs and key chains, they also had earplugs for sale.  I don’t know if they were official TT earplugs, but they were clearly feeding a need.  I know it was loud, but that’s sort of like going to an art show and selling blindfolds.   My other favorite observation from the souvenir stand was watching the lady in front of me choose a shirt.  She asked for a large shirt that was in a babydoll cut.  The cashier handed it to her.  It was maybe 18 inches from top to bottom and about 10 inches wide.  The lady looked at it, looked at the cashier and said:  “Do you have any shirts for a normal large person?”

• I am pleased to say that Tina’s singing voice has lost nothing over the last seven decades. Oh, that voice.  That wild combination of raspiness, pinched sound and full throated wail.  Has their ever been another voice like it?    I love how she can absolutely wail in key.  If I wail like that, my voice is shot for the rest of the night.  I love how when she sings Typical Male she gets so fired up that she gets to a point in the song where she can’t even be bothered to pronounce the whole words.  Instead of saying “female attraction,” she just sings “Fe-muh Uh-tra-uh.”  She opened up the second act seated on a stool doing an acoustic set with her band.  She sang a slowed down, emotionally vibrant version of the Beatles’ “Help,” that was possibly the highlight of the show.  It is hard to imagine too many other rock stars being able to still reinterpret songs in a new way as they limp into their seventh decade.

• And the girl can still dance.  It’s a bit odd to go to a rock concert by someone who’s half a decade older than your parents, but boy that AARP member can move.  She may have slowed down a hair in the tail end of her 6th decade, but not much.  If she didn’t dance the entire 3 hour show, she made it clear that she still could have if she wanted to.  There seemed to be more songs where she was content to stand behind the microphone and her backup dancers did most of the heavy lifting, but Tina’s not one to stand still.  She seemed practically incapable of singing without at least moving her legs.  And on about every song, she would join in.  It was a joy to see some of those signature dance moves once again.  That bow legged strut kick, the entire Proud Mary series of digging, turning, spinning and diving – all of which is done on a pair of stiletto Manolo Blahniks.  At the end of the show, she ran out on a giant crane arm that extended 100 feet out over the audience.  She hung off the end, she reached down to the crowd.  She did a little jig while walking down the middle of it without any guard rails or wires to keep her from plummeting into the audience and killing somebody’s great grandmother.  It was astounding.

• This was her 50th year as a performer and one of the great things about having 5 decades of material to pull from is that you don’t have to sing any clunkers.  A couple of years ago, I went to a concert by a young artist who only had a single album out.  She sang all of her songs, even the lame ones and then spent the second half of the concert playing covers and asking people for requests.  Tina didn’t have that problem.  Every song she sang was a hit.  Every time she started singing, I thought “Hey!  I love this song!”  And she doesn’t have a big chip on her shoulder like stupid Van Morrison who refuses to sing Brown Eyed Girl anymore (let’s be honest, no ones showing up just to hear Moondance, it’s not that good of a song).  She didn’t seem tired of any of her songs, even Proud Mary which she has been singing, dancing, and performing for all 50 of those years.  In fact, she seemed to be having a ball.  Performing to a sold out crowd has to be better than Bingo night in Boca.

• The dancing was awesome which leads to me this pronouncement:  It was during the concert that I had what is perhaps the gayest thought I have ever had in my life.  I was watching her 4 female dancers whip themselves into an undulating frenzy during Simply the Best and I literally (sadly) thought to myself.  “Man, I hope that in a future life I can come back as one of Tina’s backup dancers, how cool would that be!”   Yes, my stated goal was to reappear as a 22 year old 110 pound woman  dancing to Thunderdome behind a 69 year old.  If there’s anything gayer than that, I can’t think of it.

All in all, it was one of the most fun and joyous nights I’ve had in a long time, which says at least as much about my life as it does the concert, but the point still stands.  It was so much fun to be a part of so many people having so much fun.  (worst written sentence ever).  I got to literally see 20,000 people relive some of their fondest memories from the last 50 years.  Everywhere you went you saw people smiling. 

I am not ashamed to admit that at the end I got a little weepy.  There was more than just a touch of melancholy in the air when you realized think that this was the last time you would see Tina spin around at the beginning of Proud Mary.  The last time you would hear her blow one of those giant air kisses:  Mmmm-Muh!  The last time, she would ever dangle over the audience on a crane while yelling “Nutbush!  One more time!”

I turned to the person beside me and saw that they were crying too.  I reached out to touch their arm until I realized that they were just putting in eye drops as part of their saline replacement therapy.  But, I’m sure the sentiment was the same. 

Tina has another 52 tour dates before April when she will presumably retire for good at age 70.  Apparently Oprah talked her out of retirement this time.  Maybe, if we’re lucky, the big O can work her magic and talk her into coming out of retirement again.  The world may or may not need another hero, but we definitely need a energetic septuagenarian dancing and singing up a storm at the Verizon center.