Lionel Richie stuck on nostalgia
Tuesday’s American Music Awards featured a flashback segment with Lionel Richie in a heavily sequined jacket from his trophy-winning peak in the mid-1980s.
There were no trophies to be had Friday at the Kodak Theater in Los Angeles, and for all intents and purposes his concert also was a rewind experience. Richie has a new album, “Coming Home,” to promote, but he spent more time playing old Commodores songs, and a preponderance of synthesizer sounds guaranteed that much of the evening’s material would sound dated and unimaginative.
In his defense, Richie warned early in the two-hour show that it was “the tour before the tour,” implying that the set list and arrangements might get a tune-up before he commits to a routine. But if he uses his Kodak moments as a gauge, he’ll be serving up nostalgia by the pound when he hits the road, because this audience, mostly in their 40s and 50s, seemed quite content to thumb through the memories of Richie’s musical yearbook.
To be fair, Richie did offer some enhancements to a few of his songs. “Love Will Conquer All” featured the most attractive transition, recast in a quasi-acoustic tropical groove. Elsewhere, he dropped in some unusual outside musical references: Laid Back’s “White Horse” got oddly wedged into “Running With the Night,” Van Halen’s “Jump” filled in a few cracks during “Dancing on the Ceiling,” and the Ohio Players’ “Fire” was mashed up quite effectively with “Brick House.”
Richie also provided the obligatory solo set, dealing piano-and-vocal treatments of “Still,” “Sail On” and “Oh No.” Those scaled-down performances could have given the couples in attendance some time to frame their own relationships within the evening’s backward-glancing mood and hopefully walk away with some positive, look-how-far-we’ve-come romantic vibes. But Richie broke the emotional atmosphere after each song by rushing to the foot of the stage, arms spread, goading the crowd into applause. In that action, Richie torpedoed his own songs’ potency, instead focusing attention on his apparent need to relive his glory days.
The biggest positive in the set was the simple reminder of the depth of his catalog. The bulk of the 25 songs were hits, and in many cases — “You Are” and “Stuck on You” are prime examples — Richie’s proven ability to package the right words with a catchy melody make songwriting appear deceptively simple.
Many of his songs could use a bit of scrubbing to make them sound a little less anachronistic, but even if Richie intends to make his living by remembering the good ol’ days, he could at least pull back on the self-promotion and trust his songs to sell themselves. They’re the real reason people are willing to pay $70 to see him.
Reuters/Hollywood Reporter
