Once, twice, three times a lady! Yes, folks, Lionel Richie, one of the great singers of the 1970s and 1980s is on the road again, “All The Hits, All Night Long” and me? I believe him because God knows he has em.
Sure, in my youth I thought he play Pat Boone to Michael Jackson’s Little Richard, but MJ is dead and Prince wasn’t walking the same side of the street and time heals all wounds and I can’t see the moral scriptures as clearly as I could when I was a mere wisp of a lad, so listening to the Commodores and solo hits all these years of them, well, they sound fine to these ears.
The difference between Richie’s “Dancing On The Ceiling” or “Hello” or “Easy” is they haven’t been overplayed in the past decade. They haven’t disappeared but they aren’t like the MJ hits where you can’t throw a brick without hitting one. So they sound fresher than they should and having been pretty great the first time round, it is refreshing, it is like finding a treasure trove of pure pop.
There is an American Express presale as I write and on Friday June 14th tix go on sale for the September 24th gig at Barclay Center. Really, my gut is this is gonna be a really great set, especially with last years Tuskegee only stopped from hitting the #1 on the Billboard 200 through Madonna cheating!