Diana Ross Review - Wolf Trap

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https://www.washingtonpost.com/arts-...iew-wolf-trap/

[PeaceNHarmony]

Paywall-protected - boo to the WaPo!!

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At Wolf Trap, Diana Ross gives a ‘move it or lose it’ lesson on life
The 79-year-old Motown legend energetically covers decades of hits, while sending her audience off with a lot of positive vibes


Review by Chris Kelly
July 2, 2023 at 1:13 p.m. EDT

Diana Ross performs at a Beverly Hills, Calif., event in May. [[Patrick T. Fallon/AFP/Getty Images)


On Saturday night at the Filene Center at Wolf Trap, Diana Ross seemed most concerned about the movement of the capacity crowd: “I want to see you moving,” she said. “I can’t see you moving. Are you moving?”

Moving is the least the audience could do, considering Ross kept things going for nearly two hours.
“You know I’m 79, right?” she said to cheers. “Move it or lose it.”
“Move it or lose it” is a fitting mantra for the singer, who has spent more than six decades in the spotlight, seemingly in constant motion as she dominated pop music — first as the breakout star of the Supremes, then as a solo artist — before taking a foray into acting and continuing to rack up awards, milestones, honors and superlatives.
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As her Music Legacy Tour made its penultimate U.S. stop in Fairfax County, Ross and company played two dozen songs, many of which have served as the soundtrack of our lives, with the singer — who was once crowned the female entertainer of the century — proving that she can still do what she was born to do.
With a nine-piece band and four background singers dressed all in black, Ross provided the color and star power expected of the icon, her changing outfits a mood ring of sequins and frills that morphed from tangerine to silver to regal purple and black to fairylike pink and champagne. And while she knows how to pick her spots and lean on her background players, she still has impressive control over her gentle soprano.
But beyond her voice, look and Hitsville USA parade, the most striking part of the performance might have been a jubilance and joie de vivre that has not been dulled after countless concerts over the years.
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The Music Legacy Tour lived up to its billing, with Supremes hits such as “You Can’t Hurry Love” and “Come See About Me,” the sultriest disco groove of all time in “Love Hangover” and the Chic-powered classics “Upside Down” and “I’m Coming Out.” There were nods to her film career, with “Ease on Down The Road” from “The Wiz,” the sweeping “Theme from Mahogany” and a handful of Billie Holiday numbers from Ross’s “Lady Sings the Blues” period.
Those songs — which the crowd knows, to borrow a lyric, upside down and inside out — recall the period when Ross and Motown were at their apex and established the high-water mark for pop music. But the lyrics that resonate most are the ones that shine through the nostalgic glow to look not just backward, but also forward. “I love you more today than yesterday,” she sang on a cover of a 1969 song by Spiral Starecase, “but not as much as tomorrow.”
For those onstage and in the crowd who have more yesterdays than tomorrows, there’s an obvious appeal to performing and hearing the songs that were playing during first dances and first dates. But Ross understands, perhaps more than most, how making music can serve a higher purpose. She recalled how, when the coronavirus pandemic canceled live shows, she decided to return to the studio and record an album of her first original music in more than two decades. The result was 2021’s “Thank You,” an experience that allowed Ross to refocus on the important things in life, such as music and family.
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“I ended up knowing that it didn’t take a lot to make me happy,” she told the crowd.
Ross performed songs from the album that have the same belief in the power of love as her old favorites, even if they understandably lack the same resonance. Going from those new tracks to her versions of “Why Do Fools Fall in Love,” “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough” and “I Will Survive” — the latter of which she supplemented with an interpolation of DJ Khaled’s hip-hop anthem “All I Do Is Win” — caused emotional whiplash.
Before Ross sang her encore [[the title track from “Thank You”), she asked the crowd to repeat after her: “I’m so grateful for all the blessings in my life, for there are many. We are abundantly supported, and all is well.”
As the concertgoers danced their way to the parking lots with chairs, coolers and cushions in tow, the affirmation kept them moving forward, as Ross has helped them do for all these years.



By Chris Kelly
Chris Kelly writes about the intertwined worlds of hip-hop, R&B, pop and electronic music. Twitter

[PeaceNHarmony]

That is indeed a wonderful, wonderful review and the writer captures so much that is extraordinary about Diana Ross.