Concert Review: Stevie Wonder @ Air Canada Centre

By: Daniel Gerichter (@ZenDonut) –

Stevie Wonder.

Stevie Wonder’s 1976 double album Songs in the Key of Life is a masterpiece. A sprawling meditation on America, childhood, family, race and the melodies that tie them all together. It’s his magnum opus and of itself a benchmark in modern music. So when Wonder (64) announced he’d be taking a break from his usual “greatest hits” tour to play the album in its entirety, it was obvious that this was a ticket to something special.

Kids, their parents and (quite possibly) their grandparents made up the sold-out Air Canada Centre crowd last night. The show advertised an 8pm start with no opener, which meant this was going to be a LONG set. By 8:30, Wonder had yet to take the stage. Too polite to boo, the crowd began a synced clap at around 8:45. A few minutes later, the lights dimmed.

Under a single spotlight, Wonder (guided by the sublime India.Arie), spoke about how much the record meant to him, how he and his band had to create t-shirts that read “almost done” to calm the very nervous A&R execs down during the creative process and the actual keys that he recorded the songs in. Behind him, his 30-piece orchestra took their positions with a backline that included seven background vocalists, a 10-piece string section and three percussionists – a modernized sampling of the album’s legendary collaborators (Minnie Ripperton, Herbie Hancock, George Benson).

The album is nearing 40-years-old (with Wonder himself a senior citizen), but closing your eyes, you’d never know. The vocals were crisp and acrobatically versatile as ever, the bass lines were every bit as funk-drenched as you’d remember and the grooves stayed airborne from the jump. Wonder still carries love for his work as though it was his first time on stage, playfully interacting with his background vocalists (who included his daughter, Aisha) and sharing the limelight with his fellow musicians. This included a delightful vocal duel with background singer Keith John (Little Willie’s son).

While Songs in the Key of Life include several ballads (“If it’s Magic”, “Joy Inside My Tears”), it’s most clearly remembered for dance floor mainstays like “Sir Duke”, “I Wish” and “All Day Sucker”, which had every ounce of energy Wonder originally charged them with. Throughout all the album’s themes and sub-points, the state of race (and racism) in America was among its boldest. And for this show to happen the a night after the sadness and rage in Ferguson, one might expect Wonder to have made a profound statement. However, it stands to reason that lyrics in a song like “Black Man” say plenty. “We pledge allegiance all our lives/to the magic colours: red, blue and white/ For with justice not for all men/History will repeat again/It’s time we learned/this world was made for all men.”

After a solid 150 minutes (including the intermission), Wonder moved the marathon along, as he created a medley of hits from his vast catalogue (including “Higher Ground” and “I Just Called to Say I Love You”) perplexingly adopting the moniker ‘DJ Tick Tick Boom’, Wonder capped an epic night off with perhaps his most defining hit, “Superstition”.

In 1976, Wonder was a creative machine and Songs in the Key of Life was the culmination of his ambition, political views and artistic influences. While the album’s hits are part of his other tours, the equally genius but lesser-known tracks are the ones that an artist with Stevie Wonder’s breadth of material will often leave out. That’s what makes this tour so special. It’s an opportunity to stay focused on Songs in the Key of Life as a work of art, as a statement, as a piece of history – kept on the pedestal it deserves to be on.