Stevie Wonder: Songs in the Key of Life 50th Anniversary Tour3Arena, Dublin★★★★★
When Paul Simon stepped up to receive the 1976 Grammy for album of the year, he nodded to various collaborators before adding, “Most of all, I’d like to thank Stevie Wonder, who didn’t make an album this year.”
Wonder, who dominated the Grammys in the mid-1970s, had won the same award the previous two years. He was back on the podium a year later for another masterpiece, Songs in the Key of Life. So much music was spilling out of Wonder that the double album came with a four-track EP of additional songs, and every note remains godlike.
No surprise, then, that 3Arena is, despite sky-high ticket prices, sold out as Wonder performs the album in its entirety on Sunday night. A few hours with a musical genius is, perhaps, a priceless experience.
After a spoken introduction asking everyone to close their eyes to see the world as he does, and some slight wavering as his 76-year old voice settles in, Wonder leads a band that makes the RTÉ Concert Orchestra look short-handed through the album’s twists and turns.
Given the musical chops on display, it’s surely no easy task to secure a place in Wonder’s troupe. One of the percussionists – there are three, along with two guitarists and full horn and string sections, plus a phalanx of backing singers – shows their virtuosity armed only with a tambourine and triangle.
Sunday November 1st – Stevie Wonder at the 3Arena, Dublin. Photo by Kieran Frost for The Irish Times
The early highlight is probably Wonder’s voice opening up fully for Sir Duke, with its spectacular brass breakdown, before the bassist Nathan Watts, who played on the album, takes us into a joyous I Wish.
But then again, with a record this vast – 21 songs, clocking in on the studio version at 104 minutes – there are several “Ah, I’d forgotten this one” moments, such as the rush of hearing the melody of Knocks Me Off My Feet before combined string and brass drive it towards its glorious key change, or the horns and melodica gathered around Wonder’s chromatic harmonica for the instrumental Easy Goin’ Evening (My Mama’s Call). Some of Wonder’s interludes beat other artists’ best efforts.
It’s a night full of incredible moments, not least when Wonder’s harmonica slips into Michael Jackson’s Billie Jean, when the stately Joy Inside My Tears finishes with an unexpected violin solo or when the harpist Brandee Younger steps up to accompany him on If It’s Magic – which it very much is.
Then Wonder knocks a solo out of a harpejji (a tiny cross between a piano and a guitar) with such casual melodic brilliance one suspects he could get a tune out of a forklift if he had to. Kudos too to the sound engineers who make every note of this soulful symphony clearly audible whether it’s a blasting horn or a strummed guitar.
Sunday November 1st – Stevie Wonder at the 3Arena, Dublin. Photo by Kieran Frost for The Irish Times
There’s no flagging towards the end: a fantastic As prompts some of Wonder’s best singing, and even after he has finished with the album he doesn’t seem interested in heading home. Instead he jokes about running over time as he closes with both Signed, Sealed, Delivered (I’m Yours) and Superstition.
He seems to be enjoying himself immensely, whether declaring his love, giving a singing lesson – “You’re a little out of key. We’ll do it again” – or mentioning some possible Irish blood in his background.
We won’t experience his like again.