This diva don't do encores

Don’t make me over

Dionne Warwick [1] knows the way to Amsterdam; I was out tonight to see her in concert. The supporting act was something that sounded like Tiara, a lady with a band of 3, a strong voice and a good warm up act.

The lighting must have been done by a sub-par supporting act lighting technician, I hardly saw her face, most of the time she was a silhouette, I feared, I did fear, I had to Say a little prayer.

She got to her version of the yellow brick road and left with grateful applause.

Are you there?

The concert paraphernalia was poor with a stingy store attendant who would not display his wares but only allow the viewing of just 2 items at a time. Imagine, out of the body of work the gracious lady had done, only 2 albums were on sale.

I expected to see concert material like books, lyrics and other things about Dionne Warwick and her work with Hal David [2] and Burt Bacarach [3], it was obvious we wanted to see her but the concert organizers were like bit-part amateurs oblivious of the stature of the star entertaining – That was a shame.

I wait now for Dionne as I once again make it easy on myself.

Always something there to remind me

She came on and made us all at ease, we could sing along, dance, clap and just appreciate and she ran through a repertoire of tunes – Walk on by on to Anyone who had a heart so stone cold that You’ll never get to Heaven so much so I’ll never fall in love again without first sending a Message to Michael.

This Girl’s in love with you even I wonder why that I Say a little prayer for you which was sung as a duet with the drummer who we eventually learnt through an introduction that sounded like a besotted lover's words to be her eldest son and what a beautiful voice he had. Dionne suggested she had brought that song that was dear to her heart into the 21^st Century.

Alfie was always a Heartbreaker and then we got into Brazil mood where we had the best advertisement for Brazil we had to be absolutely compelled to move something in syncopation or else we were long gone – a medley of Brazil songs you had to dance.

Trains and Boats and Planes

We all know but Do you know the way to San Jose in a salsa kind of theme after that hearing I knew I’ll never love this way again even if we know What the world needs now, it is the Christmas season and to see Dionne in the flesh we beckoned to that call O come all ye faithful to have Chestnuts roasting on an open fire.

In the end, we knew That’s what friends are for, a long session, a duet with interesting banter with her son as he praised his mum by saying he learnt from the best before quipping about being from a tough household that had mum mimicking a silly child – all good fun as it all came to an end.

A standing ovation and we clapped till our hands were red and worn, hollered till we were hoarse, little did we know we were about to see mega-diva, she doesn’t do encores – her prerogative, we just assumed she would come out to do more, if she did, then she would not be a diva, I suppose.

A good night in the end, I enjoyed watching the couples, male and female, male and male, female and female all caressing each other and we the singles were left singling, inkling for all the love in the world – she did not sing this. In any event she is a class act almost beyond compare.

Sources

[1] Dionne Warwick - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[2] Hal David - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[3] Burt Bacharach - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Note

All the titles of the songs she sang in order appear in bold italics in the text of the blog apart from the three pertaining to Brazil, one of which I was familiar with as a popular Brazilian signature sound but I cannot give a name.