The Burt Bacharach Discussion Forum

A dear friend who I have been in correspondence because of the music and appreciation of his work for more than two decades now, has sent me a rare review of what he recently show from Germany.

He is a local from the city of Dortmund, where one of my cousin has married a local Fraulein.

Met him through the record collectors magazine and has flourished throughout the years. He saw the 3 divas concert and was able to
dismiss everything I have heard about this --a little messy reported--
overly reported--nonetheless interesting. Because if this sort of
concert ever get done here in the States. I wonder whatever will be
the reception. I do no like fanatic fans making reports. I wished reports
is not tainted with very partial editorials. The way it was seen and not
written like there's a PRO was behind the headline or review. Just telling it as it is...period. Now, here it is , my friends, his friends being there...like coming from the horses mouth, so to speak. Enjoy,!!






Dear Dario,
thanks for your updates! I enjoyed the Divas concert although there had been some trouble before.
You know the tour had been planned for big arenas in Berlin, Hamburg, Munich and Gelsenkirchen (50.000 people each place) but because of poor sales they appeared on smaller stages. Berlin had to be cancelled completely because at that time there was no other place they could perform in at that particular time.
I've read about the Hamburg concert in the internet and they said the concert even started with a lot of people being outside trying to change the old tickets into ones for the new venue. But I guess people just arrived too late to have enough time to change tickets.
We went to Oberhausen, Martin, our friend Dirk & I and at first we had been quite frustrated because we had seats quite high at the side. But all in all I think being in a big big arena would have taken us farer away than this! Rumors go that they sold more tickets than seats in the smaller venues, so not everyone was able to go there. They also had a screen at the wall, but we just were able to see this in half, because of the big speakers in front of it.
They did three segments, with Dionne being the first on stage (with her band, this time without Lee Valentine). She did her usual medley of her 60's hits, starting with Close To You, Walk On By, Anyone Who Had A Heart, You'll Never Get To Heaven, I'll Never Fall In Love Again, Message To Michael, This Girl's In Love With You, I Say A Little Prayer, I guess she also sang "Look Of Love" in between. Then she did Heartbreaker, I'll Never Love This Way Again and finally What The World Needs Now. She was in good voice and we really enjoyed singing along (!) Heartbreaker & What The World Needs Now.
She left the stage, they rearranged the place for the band and Natalie came. She did "A Song For You" , "Lovely Day" (Bill Withers), a cover version of a BB King tune, "Miss You Like Crazy", "Route 66", "Unforgettable" (with Nat duetting from the screen), "Smile" and a couple of other songs I've not been familiar with. She did around 45 minutes as Dionne did. After that a short break and Whitney came on stage. She started with newer songs like "If I Told You That" and then gave us a medley of her old tracks. I felt whenever the spark tried to create an atmosphere she damaged it. She sang a short version of "Savin All My Love" and a medley including "You Give Good Love" "Greatest Love Of All", in my opinion in different style but she ruined the melody line, especially in her version of "I Wanna Dance With Somebody". But she was moving and jumping around and even kicked away her high heels to feel more comfortable. It was fine, though, to see those ladies together. Dionne came back to the stage to perform a song Whitney liked as a little child: Wishin' And Hopin' . It was funny to really hear them sing that tune! They had a lot of fun singing it and giggling. A family affair. After that they did Whitney's favourite from Dionne's classic tracks together: "Alfie". Really was nice to hear both of them singing it.
After that Whitney did a couple of numbers, and after a gospel track, Natalie returned. She wanted to hear that gospel track again and Whitney and Natalie did it together. Then followed a Natalie track "which kicks the ass" as Whitney said: "This Will Be". In a short break a guy from the background had a solo number. The show finished with "I Will Always Love You" (everyone waited for it) and the three ladies performing "That's What Friends Are For". A nice evening lasting for a good three hours.
As far as I know it had been a tour exclusively planned for those dates in Germany. Although the press said "Whitney can still do it!" the organization of it and going to smaller venues caused damage to the image of Tchibo, who said this would be the "event of the year".
I'm also interested in possibly going to Rotterdam/Netherlands for Dionne's concert. It's much more intimate and the date is durig my vacation, so... I'm looking forward to that!
For the rest everything is fine with me. Today is the first day with sun and warmth after a long time. Hopefully weather will be like summer soon! This evening we're invited by Derrick for a party. He rearranged his appartment and he will celebrate what we call "inauguration party" (also when someone moves into a new appartment). That's it for now. Stay tuned on this channel!

Have a nice day!

Kurt Dietrich

Hi there, I´ve already posted my review of the Oberhausen concert on this board a couple of days ago and I´m gonna repost it here, so the two reviews can be read in context.

As a hardcore DW fan, who has seen her more than a dozen times in concert since 1982, and somebody who used to appreciate WH primarily as "Cissy´s girl", I´m surprised by the positive take on Dionne´s performance and the more negative on Whitney´s in the other review.

I´m particularly puzzled that the other review scolds Whitney for changing the rhythm on songs like "I Wanna Dance With Somebody"...For me these were exactly the moments in her performance where she was drawing on Dionne and her great mother...Adding more of a gospel feel to her uptempo material and keeping things fresh and new even after performing them for a thousand times.


Posted: Mon Jul 12, 2004 10:40 am    Post subject:
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Dionne,Whitney and Ms Natalie Cole together in concert last night

It´s the morning after the concert in Oberhausen that ran about 4 hours last night and ended shortly before midnight with Dionne, Whitney and Natalie performing That´s What Friends Are For as an encore to an extremely, friendly and supportive sellout crowd of 15000 (mostly gay men, it seemed ) that also included Ms. Cissy Houston. I want to give you a quick report on what went on now and might return to give you some extra details later.

All in all it was musically a very mixed bag but emotionally and as human drama it certainly was a night to remember. Based on the reviews from the Hamburg and Munich shows earlier in the week the performances must have varied extremely from night to night. Dionne got glowing notices in Hamburg and Munich and was vocally painfully strained and hoarse last night, the worst I´ve ever seen her. While Whitney who had triumphed in Hamburg and was described as unable to really get through any song in Munich because of a constant shortness of breath, hitting the wrong notes, forgetting the words etc. gave a performance that was vocally solid and musically more interesting and more Houston/Drinkard in some parts than when I last saw her in concert 7 or 8 years ago.

Dionne opened the set with a decent Close To You and then went into an interestingly "deconstructed" version of Walk On By that had hints of Isaac Hayes´ take of the song and was sung in a higher key again than what we heard from Dionne recently. Maybe the changes in tempo and phrasing made it easier for Dionne to do it in a higher key again, I dont´t know. From Walk On By on what followed was stiched together in a medley that was ok for the occasion but totally lacked the spectacle of the past medleys .There was none of the "one second she is still doing one song and the next she´s already in the middle of the next" grandezza we know from the past. The medley also included AWHAH, This Girl...,ISALP that generated the biggest response from the audience (it very much seemed to me that in this country people consider it totally a DW song and not an Aretha song) and a terrible take on WTWNN where she actually tried to have the audience do some of the singing for her, but when that turned out lackluster she didn´t do much herself either, it sort of just died...After that came I Never Love This Way Again and it was a first time for me to see her struggle on that one and after that she closed with Heartbreaker on which she was greatly aided by a tumultous response from the audience that clapped and cheered and sang along so loud that Dionne just had to make it through to finish her set.

After her came Natalie Cole who looked and moved like she was a robot on remote control with a strange empty gaze that made my neighbor turn to me and say: "Oh god, Whitney got the other two ladies to do drugs with her". The set was ok, but I hadn´t really thought about how little of a catalogue of her own she really has and while she has a pleasant, jazzy instrument she is no patti who can make up for her limited own material by instantly making other people´s songs her own.

And then came a Whitney that looked pleasantly middle-aged with a little bid of extra weight, a very obvious wig, a slightly tacky sequinned gown and all in all the mannerisms of Dame Shirley Bassey. But also with totally the vocal power and the control of such a diva. Giving very safe but self-assured readings of You Give Good Love, The Greatest Love Of All, Saving All My Love etc...Material that was always a bit MOR, seemed now totally devoid of any soul but was performed with a still powerful voice.

And then, and at that point totally unexpected for me, two stunning and brilliant things happened, that I will never forget:

Dionne returned to the stage and Whitney suddenly unexpectably seemed very human and very real and very young again and full of obvious love and admiration for her first cousin when they then performed two duets together. As a real treat "Wishin´and Hopin´", a song Whitney said she had loved since she was a little girl and one Dionne claimed she hated, which they performed with wonderful humor making fun of the slightly naive lyrics and a Dionne that sounded, if you closed your eyes, like 63 - 1963. I don´t know what happened in that moment that made it so different from the rest of the evening, but she did.

And then came Alfie, where they battled it out, and you got a glimpse of how Whitney as a musician has somewhere deep down actually matured - not just aged - and how the difficulties of the last years have improved her ability to interpret brilliant music and brilliant lyrics...Just wonderful, with Dionne still coming out on top...I´m pretty sure we are going to hear this one on record pretty soon.

And the second brilliant thing that then happpened, after Dionne had left the stage again, was Whitney performing a bit of gospel music for a couple of minutes. But not in a I turn every song I sing into a Whitney Houston song regardless of where the material comes from sort of way, like it was on The Preacher´s Wife soundtrack or on the awful Christmas album, but very, very much as Cissy´s daughter. Genuine, mature, musically brilliant...as an obvious heir to Aretha, Mavis, Cissy, everybody...Just incredible...

And that was that. And I think I actually now told you everything you might want to know...and maybe more.

Greetings from Düsseldorf,
Andreas