The iconic 78-year-old American singer stopped off in Montreux on Saturday evening as part of her “Thank You Tour” in the form of a farewell to the stage. Between unstoppable disco-soul hits, recent pop songs and headset worries, Diana Ross only fully seduced during a few flashes.
The four brass section, the six other musicians and four singers are already ready to do battle on the stage of the Stravinsky auditorium while the notes of a grandiloquent score resound. Both the instrumentalists and the public are already applauding Diana Ross, one of the last living icons in the history of black American music who prefers to leave herself a little wanting in this Saturday night fever.
The singer enters the track by sketching a few dance steps on “I’m Coming Out”, an unstoppable eigthies hit which had once propelled the ex-soul-pop diva into an imperial queen of disco thanks to the good care of Chic. The show begins at a breakneck pace.
In her colorfully patterned black dress topped with an orange fringed cape, Diana Ross sings in a clear, confident voice with a smile on her face, beaming, visibly happy to be in Montreux for what she would later say was the last concert of his six-week European tour, including the Glastonbury Festival in England or the day before by the North Sea Jazz Festival in Amsterdam.
Love is king, Diana Ross its Cupid
This is followed by a very pop version of “More Today Than Yesterday” by the Californian Spiral Starecase, and “Baby Love”, a classic by the trio The Supremes who revealed it in the 1960s. A return to Motown and its spangled sentimentalism that the native from Detroit chooses to embellish successively by “Stop! In the Name of Love”, “You Can’t Hurry Love”, “Love Child” and “My World Is Empty Without You”, thus passing through the stage Diana Ross & The Supremes.
Love is king, Diana Ross its Cupid. Throughout her performance, she will launch “I Love You” to emphasize her humanist message, repeatedly supported on stage by children and teenagers (members of her extended tribe?), as well as by golden and sparkling hearts on the side screens.
If her voice is sometimes covered by her impressive formation during this “Love Child” which ends on Latin jazz percussion, she repeatedly shows her annoyance with the sound feedback in her headset, Diana Ross never loses his smile or his calm.
Effective and calibrated concert
As a professional, like her effective concert calibrated American-style show, she will also change her outfit twice, first for a bright yellow dress then another silver and sequined dress more glamorous. “Chain Reaction”, a piece signed by the Bee Gees, then a little tour without extra soul on the jazz side of Billie Holiday for “Don’t Explain”, which Diana Ross nevertheless embodied with talent in the cinema in “Lady Sings the Blues” (1972), begin the explosive arrival of the irresistible “Upside Down”. A mirror ball and an energetic vocal and musical accuracy contribute to making it the climax as logical as expected of the concert.
A takeoff extended by a medley composed of “Love Hangover”, “Take Me Higher” and “Ease on Down the Road” once performed alongside Michael Jackson. The third part of the performance accompanied by images of the youth of a Diana Ross dancing on Broadway among others (the illustrative “If the World Just Danced) will not bring anything exciting and salient until the recovery from “I Will Survive” by Goria Gaynor.
Tour hazards
Diana Ross finally sat up for a moment, waving a fan, not out of breath but admitting a certain fatigue. She explains the setbacks encountered at the airport, suitcases not arriving safely, a delay that prevented a soundcheck in the followingnoon, the vagaries of a life on tour. The untouchable icon regains its share of humanity. Then ends up thanking existence for his sixty-year career, his staff, his family, the public and his faithful love, confessing a personal emotion while giving an appointment next time…
The embarrassing playback launched a little earlier for a song from her latest album that she wants to present, “Time to Call”, is suddenly forgotten. And the “Thank You” that she sings this time truly as an epilogue makes it possible to take leave on a better (bass) note.
A goodbye or a farewell which, although it might not have been officially immortalized in photographs by Montreux Jazz, will nevertheless appear in the Festival’s video archives alongside other emblematic female figures such as Etta James or Roberta Flack.
Olivier Horner