The O2 Arena in London was an eruption of fireworks, flames and plenty of sequins as Tina Turner filled the venue with excitement.


When Tina Turner tells an audience: “I want you to have a good time tonight", she means what she says. The 69-year-old singer has thrown the works at her new show: fireworks, flame throwers, acrobats, bikini-clad dancers and as many sequins as she can fit on dresses designed to show off every last millimetre of the most famous legs in showbiz. Unlike so many artists who attempt to be ’cool’ in arena sized shows and end up coming off simply cold (take note, Madonna), ... Turner knows that to fill the big venues you need to generate heat and excitement with big-hearted spectacle and big-lunged material.

It helps if you have an audience that arrive enthusiastic: all credit to Turner’s legion of fans for showing up pumped up. Most of the crowd at ground floor level were up and dancing (several in Turner-tribute wigs) before the plush red velvet curtains even parted. Turner’s had a curious, two part career. Act one saw her as the funky sixties strutter with then-husband Ike, mighty voice crashing through Phil Spector’s wall of sound like a wrecking ball on the hopelessly devoted River Deep, Mountain High.

Act Two saw her reinvented in the 1980s, solo and denim clad, backed by synths and saxophones and asking what love had to do with it.

The new show mixes up hits from both eras. It opens with Turner on a podium way above the stage in uber-eighties Amazonion gold. A broad slash of crimson lipstick widening beneath the trademark big hair. The eighties was all about volume, and Turner proves she has both kinds as she roars into Steamy Windows. Dancers in flesh-tone bikinis jerk to the beat as Turner’s podium descend stagewards.

Unlike those female pop stars whose dancers seem to live in fear of upstaging their employer, Turner seems to love pulling the sexy moves with young women decades younger than she is. That distinctive hip-jolting style that she says Mick Jagger stole from her is still packed with attitude as she swaggers into River Deep and What’s Love Got to Do With It. Then she camply, but hilariously, reappears as a sci-fi warrior queen for a full-throttle: “We Don’t Need Another Hero".

She takes it down for the moving, world weary sleaze of Private Dancer. A (relatively) stripped down blues section features a rather flat cover of Help! and a superbly sultry Undercover Agent for the Blues. Then it’s full blast again for Simply The Best, Bond-anthem Golden Eye and a rollicking Proud Mary. To deafening applause, Turner bows so low her fingernails scrape the stage beneath her stratospheric stilettos. Forget the dancing - if I can even bow like that at 69, I’ll be a happy woman.

http://www.telegraph.co.u...nwich.html

I'm so glad for Tina!

Fair play to her. I'd still shag her.