Ozzy Osbourne says ‘unbelievable’ after receiving touching gift from Yungblud at Villa Park<\/b><\/a><\/p>\nHer childlike excitement and anticipation was infectious from the moment we stepped inside Utilita Arena – almost two hours before Smokey was set to perform.<\/p>\n
I’m not a superfan, but I knew I was witnessing something rare, one of the world’s most famous living musical legends about to step out on stage.<\/p>\n
When the lights came up, the gifted songwriter, on his first UK tour in a decade, emerged to a roar of applause; dressed in a dazzling white tuxedo.<\/p>\n
Aunt Ju screamed “I loved you Smokey” on, let me tell you, more than one occasion. Some turned around with eyebrows raised. We did not care.<\/p>\n
The stage was stripped back and intimate. It felt like Smokey had just entered my living room.<\/p>\n
At 85, he should not be able to still move with such swagger. But here he was, getting seriously low, swaying those hips to his backing dancers: ‘Smoke\u2019s Angels’.<\/p>\n
“I just had to get that out of my system,” he said after a little shimmy.<\/p>\n
His set opened with smooth 80s soul banger Being With You, followed by I Second That Emotion, before hit after hit followed.<\/p>\n
His voice is still stunning: soft and high, romantic; soothing.<\/p>\n
Then came You’ve Really Got a Hold On Me – my personal favourite because it always takes me somewhere pleasant.<\/p>\n
On this occasion: a dimly-lit bar in Detroit, cigar smoke curling from an ash tray, whiskey on the rocks in hand.<\/p>\n
Though this tour celebrates the 50th anniversary of his classic album, A Quiet Storm, Smokey didn\u2019t stick to just that.<\/p>\n
He gave us the hits, but also the the deep cuts, including three tracks from his 2023 album Gasms. <\/p>\n
“Put gasm on those drums,” he told his band, before crooning the lyric “you’re the one responsible for my gasms”.<\/p>\n
“It means whatever you want it to mean,” he told his audience. I think we all get what it means, Smokey.<\/p>\n
But it wasn’t all about sex. He was also brilliantly funny.<\/p>\n
At the midway point he was cracking jokes about how his good friend Stevie Wonder (yes, that is the blind Stevie Wonder) once offered him a lift home. He was also excellent at taking the p*** out of the audience.<\/p>\n
His charisma was magnetic, his charm palpable.<\/p>\n
By the time The Tears of a Clown played – his standout moment – I realised I knew far more of his songs than I’d first thought.<\/p>\n
Aunt Ju was in full swing by then, singing along to every word, lost in the fumes of Smokey’s trance.<\/p>\n
As the show drew to a close, the reason for Motown’s success was becoming painfully obvious. It was beginning to make sense in ways it hadn’t before.<\/p>\n
The suits. The soul. The smoothness. The lyrics. That voice. How it is non-stop ‘feel good’.<\/p>\n
The birth of Motown was long before my time but I was starting to see what my aunt had always seen.<\/p>\n
“That made me feel quite emotional,” she said following the show. “I’ve loved and followed Motown from a very young age and it has carried me through some of the most difficult times.”<\/p>\n
Once we’d left the arena we both made a pact: one way or another, we’re going to Detroit.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When I told my aunty Judith we were going to see Motown legend Smokey Robinson live in Birmingham,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":250242,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7820],"tags":[855,748,6492,393,4884,21413,96583,21121,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-250241","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-birmingham","8":"tag-birmingham","9":"tag-britain","10":"tag-detroit","11":"tag-england","12":"tag-great-britain","13":"tag-motown","14":"tag-smokey-robinson","15":"tag-stevie-wonder","16":"tag-uk","17":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114822277483391431","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/250241","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=250241"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/250241\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/250242"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=250241"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=250241"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=250241"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}