1976-1985: My Favorite Decade: Stevie Wonder - Songs in the Key of Life Performance

For Halloween this year, my family and I had the distinct pleasure of attending the Stevie Wonder concert in San Antonio. That's Stevie Freakin' Wonder, unofficial music laureate of the U.S. What was supposed to be a concert performance of the Songs in the Key of Life album (of which the recorded version runs an hour and 45 minutes), was in actuality a 3+ hour worship service with Stevie preaching on life, love, and music. What follows are my random, unorganized thoughts on the show.

My father has lived in San Antonio since 1986, so after picking up my eldest son from his apartment in Bryan, we headed to SA on Friday the 30th. Heavy rains had caused flash flooding across the area which turned what is normally a five hour drive into an eight hour experience. But we arrived safely after detouring south and coming into San Antonio from the east.

From the Saturday morning paper:

My father recommended we leave the house early, but there was little traffic that evening (everybody trick-or-treating?) so it took only 15 minutes to get to the AT&T Center from his house. We had plenty of times to find our floor seats.

Stevie's voice is amazing. Still.
The concert started at 8:20, there was an intermission from 9:50-10:20. The concert ended promptly at midnight.
It was my first time in the arena and thought the sound was exceptional for a basketball/hockey venue.
What's more impressive - that Stevie Wonder wrote and recorded Songs in the Key of Life when he was only 26 or that he can still perform the crap out of this music for over 3 hours at age 65? Answer: D) all of the above
At intermission, my youngest son (age 18) told me that the 20-something young man in front of him had been on Facebook throughout the entire first half. He said he wanted to tap him on his shoulder and say, "You know that's Stevie Wonder up there on stage, right? Get off your phone!"
I haven't purchased a concert tee since a Sting concert in 1985, but I broke that 30 year streak because Stevie.
A blazing live version of "Contusion" completely blew my mind and I was still recovering from that when the band kicked into "Sir Duke" which brought the crowd to its feet in unison (because they were feelin' it all over, most likely). I was immediately transported to my bedroom in 1976, where my 10-year-old self was listening to the song playing on my bedside AM clock radio. I shook myself back to the present where I realized I was singing along with Stevie. The whole thing made me very emotional - wish I could explain it better, but I think my fellow music geeks know exactly what I'm talking about.
Learn something new everyday: Wonder played an instrument that's new to me - the hybrid string instrument by Marcodi called a harpejji. Of course, I now want one for myself. For the record, he used it mainly to perform "My Cherie Amour" and a cover of "People Get Ready."
As I've written over at The CD Project blog, my favorite song on the Songs in the Key of Life album is "As" so imagine my feelings when Stevie introduced that particular song as his mother's favorite and one that he performed at her service. As with every other tune, Stevie and the band tore it up, much to the delight of this fan.

Performing "As"
Photo credit: me
The newspaper review can be found here (include partial setlist).
There wasn't en encore per se, but the show closed with "Living for the City," "For Once in My Life," and "Superstition."
Putting me to shame, Stevie got up the next morning and went to church at San Antonio's True Vision Church along with jazz saxophonist Kirk Whalum.
When someone posts a setlist, I'll link to it. (here it is, accuracy not guaranteed) I was too busy enjoying the show to worry about keeping up with that.