Concert Review: Stevie Wonder performs Songs in The Key of Life, Target Center, March 29th 2015

At certain points throughout the evening—all four hours of it, give or take—it seemed like Stevie Wonder was directly addressing me.

Not like he stopped the show to say, “Hey, Kevin, what’s up man?” But it was his infallible message of love and life, and his deep-rooted spirituality, that he chose to discuss when talking to the entire audience—all 13,000 or whatever people crammed into the Target Center on a Sunday night.

The gist of the message was that haters needed to “get their shit together.” Those were, in fact, his words at a certain point.  And on the drive home, as we made our way through the congested traffic of downtown Minneapolis, my wife asked the loaded question—“Are we haters?,” but more pointedly (and left unspoken)—am I a hater? What is my overall curmudgeonly nature getting me in life?

Let’s back up a little bit.

Apparently Stevie Wonder hasn’t been through Minneapolis in practically 30 years. What kept him away? Who knows? This region of the Midwest is lovingly referred to as “flyover country” at times when referencing huge artists on tour.

Late last year, Wonder started playing his landmark double album, Songs in The Key of Life, from start to finish, in concert, announcing a Minneapolis date in January. I wasn’t even born when Songs was released in 1976. But I understand and appreciate its importance—both of the time, as an artistic statement and a risk—as well as of today, given the racial and political tones of the record, and for that matter, of many of Wonder’s records in his late 70s creative peak.

Songs is a dense record—clocking in at over an hour and twenty minutes. It boasts a few hits (“Sir Duke” and “Isn’t She Lovely?”) but it’s mostly meant to be taken as a whole, packed with what many would probably consider to be “deep cuts.”

After some minor deliberation when tickets went on sale, my wife and I decided that I needed to overcome my crippling concert anxiety, and that we needed to go to this show—because in 2015, how many times are you going to get to see Stevie Wonder play? Dude is in his 60s, and it’s not like he tours every year in support of a new album—he hasn’t even recorded anything new in a decade.

So we did it. I overcame the adversity, which wasn’t easy. There’s the 45 minute drive from our home to the big scary city. There’s parking! Which actually wasn’t that bad since we arrived before the doors opened, and secured a spot in the garage right near the ramp to exit (and we also backed in, which is maybe the smartest thing you can do when 600 other cars are trying to leave at the same time as you.)

And then we waited.

We waited until 7, when the doors to the Target Center opened, and the couple hundred people who were waiting in line rushed in to get their $8.50 beers, $35 t-shirts, and bags of cotton candy.

And then we waited some more. The show was supposed to start at 8, and at 8, there was no Stevie. While we were waiting, we were wondering just how full the venue was going to be. The show itself was not sold out, and even with an entire hour to get their asses into their seats, people took their time, with the venue not really filling up until right before 8.

Maybe this is why at around 8:20, he sauntered out on stage, lead by India.Arie (my wife was puzzled as to who that even was.) Wonder then addressed the haters, spoke of the lord, love, life, and the songs in the key of it. After about 10 minutes, he was led over to his set up of keyboards and a piano, and went into “Love’s In Need of Love Today.”

And for the first, I’d say, six songs, Wonder and his gigantic band were straight up hot fire. They sounded great, and were incredibly captivating—specifically the guitar soloing during “Contusion,” and then the double shot of crowd pleasers: “Sir Duke” and “I Wish.”

Then, something happened. And this is where I was self-aware enough to realize that I was being a hater, but the momentum came to a grinding halt during an extended jam on “Knocks Me Off My Feet,” where wonder took time to banter with almost each of his six back up singers, stretching the moments out longer than I felt necessary and testing my goodwill as an audience member.

The first half of the show came to a close at around 9:45, with a 15 minute intermission prior to the beginning of the second LP of Songs, kicking off with “Isn’t She Lovely.” Prior to the start of the second act, however, there was another delay, when Wonder was honored by the Mayor’s husband, as well as other representatives from the area, where they declared (with two hours left in the day) that it was “Stevie Wonder Day” in Minneapolis.

There were more detours as well from the album’s structure in the second half—a medley where Wonder played the harpejji, putting together songs like “Tequlia,” “People Get Ready,” and “The Way You Make Me Feel,” before moving back into the songs from Songs. He also added in two tracks from the bonus EP (something my used vinyl copy came without—thanks Half Price Books), both of which seemed a little out of place in the first half of the show, as they aren’t nearly the caliber of emotionally charged soul and funk as the rest of Songs in The Key of Life is.

Wonder finished up his main set with “As” and “Another Star,” creating a transcendental cacophony on stage—the Star Tribune claims 40 people were on stage in his band, but I guess I wasn’t counting. But a lot was happening, and the band jammed on and on, bringing the final moments of “Another Star” to a climax.

Then, it was time for the encore.

Wonder hadn’t even left the stage, and he was toying with the audience, asking if they were ready to go home yet.

The 13,000 people at the Target Center—well, they weren’t. Maybe 12,999 of them weren’t. I was. I was ready to go home. I’ll admit it. Struggling with being “in the moment,” I was concerned about the time, the long drive home, getting up for work in the morning, trying to even make it out of Minneapolis in one piece, and most importantly, our rabbit Annabell—who had a sitter for part of the night, but she left to tend to her own companion rabbits before the first half of the show was even over.

The encore started with Wonder futzing around with a sampler, insisting the audience address him as DJ Tick Tick Boom, an act he pulls every night during the encore from what I had read online. After playing a third of a Slick Rick song, Wonder started teasing the audience with samples of his own material, prior to sitting down to play small portions of “Higher Ground” and “Do I Do,” before launching into, like, a 10 or 15 minutes jam-filled version of “Supersition”—aka, the song you probably paid upwards of $200 to see him perform.

Wonder, himself, hasn’t lost it. He’s jovial and playful with the audience—he’s funny, he’s self-deprecating, and man, his voice—I was a little unsure of just how good it still is. And it is still incredible, nailing every note throughout the night.

It’s just that maybe because I am a hater, the time he took to banter with members of his band, and the time he took to coax the audience into a call and response—well, it was making me lose my patience slightly, because even when I’m supposed to be having fun, I’m incapable of doing so.

Then there were the technical glitches that I figure a show like this would be without—countless times microphones were muted when a song started, and then we were pretty sure that Wonder’s guest harmonica player Frederic Yonnet’s microphone wasn’t even on at all. Mixing live sound in a venue like the Target Center I’m sure is not easy, but there were moments where everything just became one gigantic, muddied wall of sound; adding to this were the ear splitting decibel levels of the backup singer’s microphones as they took over singing lead during one point, as well as the school children sampled at the end of “Black Man,” which was incredibly shrill on the ears.

Early on, before the show even started, when Wonder was addressing his strong feelings about spirituality, I was worried I had walked into the wrong show. I mean, the second track on the record is called “Have a Talk With God,” so what did I expect? Right now I’m reading the Christopher Hitchens dissection of religion, god is not Great—so between that, and my self-identification as a hater of sorts, it seemed like a room filled with so much love, life, and positivity, was not where I was supposed to be.

Despite my horrible anxiety surrounding the entire situation, in retrospect, I should take Wonder’s advice and feel thankful—I should be thankful that we were presented with this opportunity to see him perform an incredible album (despite the off track moments) live. Even my wife, who notoriously hates “rock” concerts, called the show “life affirming.”

So how does one overcome their own anxieties and irritations and reach a level of peace and love like Stevie Wonder? That’s the real take away from a show like this—aside from getting home at 1 a.m, feeling like hell all day at work from lack of sleep, and having “Sir Duke” stuck in your head. I don’t know if I’ll ever reach a point where I am just that full of life and love, but in retrospect, 24 hours later, it was pretty incredible to watch someone exude those feelings for, like, four hours. 

Also, PS, I didn't take any photos during this concert. One reason was because we were sitting pretty far away, and so any photos on my mobile phone would have looked pretty underwhelming. And two, and more importantly, as the show started, both my wife and I were a little aghast at the sheer amount of people using their phones to either dink around on the internet, or to take a picture. It was just a sea of touch screens, and I didn't want to be part of the problem. The fear of missing out is apparently a very real problem.