{"id":95675,"date":"2025-07-27T03:03:10","date_gmt":"2025-07-27T03:03:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/95675\/"},"modified":"2025-07-27T03:03:10","modified_gmt":"2025-07-27T03:03:10","slug":"diana-ross-at-the-hollywood-bowl-9-iconic-moments","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/95675\/","title":{"rendered":"Diana Ross at the Hollywood Bowl: 9 iconic moments"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Diana Ross returned to the Hollywood Bowl on Friday night for the first of two weekend concerts \u2014 her fifth engagement at the hillside amphitheater since 2013 and her second gig in her adopted hometown of Los Angeles in less than a year (following her performance at last August\u2019s old-school Fool in Love festival<\/a>). In other words, it\u2019s not exactly hard to catch the 81-year-old pop legend onstage these days \u2014 which isn\u2019t to say that it\u2019s not worth doing. Here are nine moments that made me glad I showed up Friday:<\/p>\n

1.<\/b> After coming out to \u2014 what else? \u2014 \u201cI\u2019m Coming Out,\u201d Ross zipped through a frisky Motown medley linking some of the 12 No. 1 hits she and the Supremes<\/a> scored in the 1960s. Would I have liked to have heard full versions of \u201cYou Can\u2019t Hurry Love,\u201d \u201cBaby Love\u201d and \u201cStop! In the Name of Love\u201d? Sure. But hearing these all-timers stacked up in rapid succession was a thrill of its own \u2014 a reminder of the blend of efficiency and ingenuity attained on a daily basis at Hitsville, U.S.A.<\/p>\n

2.<\/b> Ross was backed by more than a dozen musicians at the Bowl, including four horn players and four backing vocalists, and they were cooking from the get-go: crisply propulsive in the Motown stuff; tight and gliding in \u201cUpside Down\u201d; lush yet down-home in Ross\u2019 take on Billie Holiday\u2019s \u201cDon\u2019t Explain,\u201d from her 1972 Holiday biopic \u201cLady Sings the Blues.\u201d<\/p>\n

3.<\/b> Two wardrobe changes meant that we beheld three glittering gowns in all, beginning with the fluffy canary-yellow number she emerged in. About halfway through the show, Ross slipped into a pipe-and-drape dressing room at the rear of the stage then slipped back out wearing bedazzled ruby red; later, she changed into a shimmering gold look. Each dress came accompanied by a matching shawl that Ross would eventually toss to the stage to be retrieved by a waiting assistant who seemed to know precisely when it would happen.<\/p>\n

4.<\/b> Each dress also came with a bulky mic pack that \u2014 in an endearingly peculiar costuming choice \u2014 Ross opted to wear on her waist instead of hiding it around back.<\/p>\n

5.<\/b> \u201cI have an album out, a current album \u2014 the title of the album is called \u2018Thank You,\u2019\u201d Ross told the crowd as she began to introduce a tune from her not-bad 2021 LP. Then she turned her head stage-left toward a sound engineer in the wings: \u201cWho\u2019s talking in the mic? I can hear a mic.\u201d She returned to the audience. \u201cAnyway, the title of the album is called \u2018Thank You.\u2019 Each song was specially written so that I could say \u2018thank you\u2019 to you for all the wonderful years, all the\u2026\u201d Another glance left. \u201cSomebody\u2019s talking in the microphone.\u201d Another turn back. \u201cWe\u2019re gonna start with this one \u2014 \u2018Tomorrow,\u2019 OK? We\u2019ll start that if I can out-talk whoever\u2019s talking over here.\u201d<\/p>\n

6.<\/b> Ross\u2019 daughter Rhonda joined her mom to sing another new-ish tune, \u201cCount on Me\u201d \u2014 \u201cShe\u2019s been practicing,\u201d Diana said proudly (if somewhat shadily) \u2014 then stuck around to do a mini-set of her own self-help-ish soul-folk songs, one of which beseeched us all to \u201cstop gaslighting ourselves.\u201d<\/p>\n

7.<\/b> Half a century after \u201cThe Wiz<\/a>\u201d debuted on Broadway in 1975, Ross sang her two big numbers from the Black retelling of the \u201cThe Wizard of Oz,\u201d which she helped cement as a cultural landmark with her role as Dorothy in a fondly remembered movie adaptation. Here, \u201cHome\u201d was wistful yet determined, while \u201cEase on Down the Road\u201d got even the high-rollers in the Bowl\u2019s box seats moving.<\/p>\n

8.<\/b> During \u201cReach Out and Touch (Somebody\u2019s Hand),\u201d Ross led the crowd in a call-and-response recitation of what she called \u201cmy mantra\u201d: \u201dI\u2019m so grateful \/ For all the blessings in my life \/ For there are many \/ All is well \/ I\u2019m resilient \/ Thank you, thank you, thank you.\u201d<\/p>\n

9.<\/b> More of Ross\u2019 children appeared onstage at the end of the show to join her for a rowdy \u201cI Will Survive\u201d \u2014 and to plug their latest commercial endeavors. \u201cCan I say one thing?\u201d Tracee Ellis Ross asked. \u201c\u2018Solo Traveling with Tracee Ellis Ross\u2019 on Roku streams today, so check out the show.\u201d Diana Ross reclaimed the microphone and gestured toward her son Ross Naess. \u201cThis is my son \u2014 he\u2019s doing a line of caviar called Arne Reserve.\u201d She looked around. \u201cChudney, what\u2019s happening with you?\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Diana Ross returned to the Hollywood Bowl on Friday night for the first of two weekend concerts \u2014…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":95676,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5123],"tags":[12260,1582,276,4537,62980,62983,21026,62981,2961,224,2444,5337,4818,15719,4370,9221,197,49778,62984,62982],"class_list":{"0":"post-95675","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-los-angeles","8":"tag-album","9":"tag-ca","10":"tag-california","11":"tag-crowd","12":"tag-diana-ross","13":"tag-dress","14":"tag-hollywood-bowl","15":"tag-iconic-moment","16":"tag-la","17":"tag-los-angeles","18":"tag-los-angeles-times","19":"tag-losangeles","20":"tag-love","21":"tag-ross","22":"tag-show","23":"tag-stage","24":"tag-title","25":"tag-tracee-ellis-ross","26":"tag-tune","27":"tag-upside-down"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114922979574489071","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/95675","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=95675"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/95675\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/95676"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=95675"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=95675"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=95675"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}