Ten years ago, Gladys Knight appeared in Manchester on her “farewell tour”. That obviously didn’t work out. Her opener tonight, I’ve Got to Use My Imagination, refers to “reasons to keep on keepin’ on”. A superb cover of Luther Vandross’s Never Too Much allows her to yell: “I just don’t want to stop.”
And why should she? At 75, she may be less nimble on her feet than she used to be, but she looks fantastic and her voice still justifies her nickname: the empress of soul.
An astonishing 58 years after Every Beat of My Heart hit the US charts (the singer performing as part of Gladys Knight & the Pips with her brother and cousins, who have all retired), she is still clearly having fun, telling her euphoric audience: “We’ve been hanging out for, errrr … many, many years” to ripples of laughter. Moments later, she quips, “I feel it coming on. Be careful not to hurt yourself.”
Come on it does, with 70s soul hits (Best Thing That Ever Happened to Me, Baby Don’t Change Your Mind) piling into contemporary dips (Sam Smith’s Stay With Me) and songs from her disco and Motown eras. She reminds people that the Pips were the first to record I Heard It Through the Grapevine, in 1967 – “and then Marvin Gaye stole it the following year”. It’s banter, not bitterness. Gaye was “an amazing man”.
By now, the tales are coming too, of her shy friend Curtis Mayfield (who called her “Glads”) and the losses of her friends and peers, Aretha Franklin and Whitney Houston. In a touching aside, she reveals that performing enables her to relive an amazing life. The 1989 Bond theme Licence to Kill shows off her incredible lower register, and she seems teary when an emotional, particularly nostalgic The Way We Were receives a singalong and standing ovation.
“I could stay here all night, but I’ve got to get to the train station,” she quips, introducing her signature smash, Midnight Train to Georgia. After 90 minutes, she’s still note perfect and pointedly declares: “Until we meet again …”
At First Direct Arena, Leeds, on Sunday. Then touring.
