Diana Ross returned to the Hollywood Bowl on Friday night time for the primary of two weekend live shows — her fifth engagement on the hillside amphitheater since 2013 and her second gig in her adopted hometown of Los Angeles in lower than a 12 months (following her efficiency ultimately August’s old-school Idiot in Love pageant). In different phrases, it’s not precisely arduous to catch the 81-year-old pop legend onstage today — which isn’t to say that it’s not value doing. Listed here are 9 moments that made me glad I confirmed up Friday:
1. After popping out to — what else? — “I’m Coming Out,” Ross zipped via a frisky Motown medley linking a few of the 12 No. 1 hits she and the Supremes scored within the Sixties. Would I’ve preferred to have heard full variations of “You Can’t Hurry Love,” “Child Love” and “Cease! Within the Title of Love”? Certain. However listening to these all-timers stacked up in fast succession was a thrill of its personal — a reminder of the mix of effectivity and ingenuity attained every day at Hitsville, U.S.A.
2. Ross was backed by greater than a dozen musicians on the Bowl, together with 4 horn gamers and 4 backing vocalists, and so they have been cooking from the get-go: crisply propulsive within the Motown stuff; tight and gliding in “Upside Down”; lush but down-home in Ross’ tackle Billie Vacation’s “Don’t Clarify,” from her 1972 Vacation biopic “Girl Sings the Blues.”
3. Two wardrobe adjustments meant that we beheld three glittering robes in all, starting with the fluffy canary-yellow quantity she emerged in. About midway via the present, Ross slipped right into a pipe-and-drape dressing room on the rear of the stage then slipped again out sporting bedazzled ruby crimson; later, she become a shimmering gold look. Every costume got here accompanied by an identical scarf that Ross would ultimately toss to the stage to be retrieved by a ready assistant who appeared to know exactly when it might occur.
4. Every costume additionally got here with a cumbersome mic pack that — in an endearingly peculiar costuming alternative — Ross opted to put on on her waist as an alternative of hiding it round again.
5. “I’ve an album out, a present album — the title of the album is known as ‘Thank You,’” Ross informed the group as she started to introduce a tune from her not-bad 2021 LP. Then she turned her head stage-left towards a sound engineer within the wings: “Who’s speaking within the mic? I can hear a mic.” She returned to the viewers. “Anyway, the title of the album is known as ‘Thank You.’ Every tune was specifically written in order that I might say ‘thanks’ to you for all of the great years, all of the…” One other look left. “Any person’s speaking within the microphone.” One other flip again. “We’re gonna begin with this one — ‘Tomorrow,’ OK? We’ll begin that if I can out-talk whoever’s speaking over right here.”
6. Ross’ daughter Rhonda joined her mother to sing one other new-ish tune, “Depend on Me” — “She’s been working towards,” Diana mentioned proudly (if considerably shadily) — then caught round to do a mini-set of her personal self-help-ish soul-folk songs, one among which beseeched us all to “cease gaslighting ourselves.”
7. Half a century after “The Wiz” debuted on Broadway in 1975, Ross sang her two massive numbers from the Black retelling of the “The Wizard of Oz,” which she helped cement as a cultural landmark along with her position as Dorothy in a fondly remembered film adaptation. Right here, “Dwelling” was wistful but decided, whereas “Ease on Down the Highway” received even the high-rollers within the Bowl’s field seats transferring.
8. Throughout “Attain Out and Contact (Any person’s Hand),” Ross led the group in a call-and-response recitation of what she known as “my mantra”: ”I’m so grateful / For all of the blessings in my life / For there are various / All is effectively / I’m resilient / Thanks, thanks, thanks.”
9. Extra of Ross’ youngsters appeared onstage on the finish of the present to affix her for a rowdy “I Will Survive” — and to plug their newest business endeavors. “Can I say one factor?” Tracee Ellis Ross requested. “‘Solo Touring with Tracee Ellis Ross’ on Roku streams at the moment, so try the present.” Diana Ross reclaimed the microphone and gestured towards her son Ross Naess. “That is my son — he’s doing a line of caviar known as Arne Reserve.” She seemed round. “Chudney, what’s occurring with you?”