Gladys Knight Rocks Charlottesville

Last week marked the two-year anniversary of the ugly events in normally-peaceful Charlottesville that forever stained the city. But on this one night, a diverse crowd of all ages, colors, genders and backgrounds put all of that out of their minds and came together for one unified purpose...to enjoy the talents of a true musical icon, and Miss Gladys most definitely did not disappoint.

Looking radiant and quite youthful in a shimmering black pantsuit, she commanded the stage for an 80 minute set that took us through all of her major hits but also some interwoven ones that were hits for other diverse artists.

She opened with I've Got To Use My Imagination and kept the tempo up for the next couple to make sure the crowd matched her energy as she continued with The Nitty Gritty, Love Overboard, and of course I Heard it Through the Grapevine.

Save the Overtime for Me and Best Thing That Ever Happened to Me were also featured and in the latter you could have heard a pin drop as she made us wait eagerly for that final "meeeeee," a note she nailed impeccably. To say she was in fine voice tonight would be an understatement.

The middle third of the show was devoted to remembering some friends of hers who were no longer with us, as she told her stories and sang One Hundred Ways [[James Ingram), On and On and The Makings of You in a tribute to Curtis Mayfield, and she involved her back-up singers in portions of Natural Woman and Luther's classic Never Too Much.

She also included renditions of Sam Smith's "Stay With Me" and the country classic "I Hope You Dance" intended of course to encourage the audience to reach for your dreams, a message she drove home several times tonight during her spoken interludes.

She then closed the show with three songs that you knew she just HAD to do.........The Way We Were, Neither One of Us, and of course Midnight Train to Georgia.

All things considered, this was one of the better shows I have seen in Charlottesville [[I have also reported before on Dionne Warwick, Diana Ross and Patti Labelle), but in all fairness to those legends, my enjoyment of tonight's show could be more about the fact that it is freshest in my memory, since I would certainly go back to see any of the four if they visit us again.

Any way you slice it, we are lucky to have some of our favorites from the good old days still out there helping us re-live our formative years and let's hope they are all around for many more years to come!

Before anyone asks.......no photos. No recording of any kind was allowed.

Nice review. Wish I had been there. One small question. I know that she was performing solo, but was any announcement or introduction made that there may have been one of the original Pips in the audience? Thanks for a nice review.

Thanks David for the review. Gladys has not lost a thing! I thoroughly enjoyed her concert I saw a few years ago.

Nothing was said about any Pips being in attendance. Speaking of introductions, for all practical purposes there were none. The theater volunteers came out and thanked everyone and gave the required "turn off your cell phones" speech and walked off the stage. Then within about 30 seconds, the band started to play, and she walked out from the back of the stage on the arm of her male back-up, and within another 30 seconds, she was in to the first song. There was no "Ladies and gentlemen, let's have a big welcome for........" or anything like that.