Newton-John gives love-filled performance
At 8:00 on September 17th, a crowd of around 9,000 participated in what has to be one of the brightest moments in the concert history of the Assembly Hall. I was lucky enough to be one of those present to enjoy the love filled performance by Olivia Newton-John.
From the opening shot of Olivia as a young girl, projected on the large screen at the back of the stage, to the closing song, Olivia kept the audience’s attention centered upon herself and the feelings she sang about.
Champaign was about two thirds the way through her 50 city “Physical” Tour of North America 82 which winds up in Los Angeles in mid-October. After the warm-up band, which is her back up band as well, appeared, there was a short break while changes were made to the stage.
Finally the lights went down and the screen lit-up with a rapidly changing collection of pictures and news articles tracing the life and career of Olivia Newton-John. She entered the stage thru slits in the screen and the concert was truly underway.
The opening section of the concert dealt with her early years and had mostly country or country-rock songs. Olivia wore a black and silver costume during this section, adding a cowboy hat occasionally.
The high-point came with her rendition of “Jolene” from her “Come On Over” album, which brought a large number of the audience to their feet.
Her carry over from this section to the next was the title song from her second movie, “Xanadu. As she sang “Xanadu,” she went up the steps to a position in front of the screen. On the last note of the song, a charge was set-off on stage and she disappeared in a large cloud of smoke that seemed to linger through her next song.
When she reappeared on stage, she was wearing a reddish-pink costume right down to the boots. Her two major numbers in this section were Magic,” which was enhanced by the smoke that still drifted around the stage, and the duet with Dennis Tufano, one of her background singers, called “Suddenly.”
The band and Olivia left the stage after the duet and a video-tape of “The Promise (The Dolphin Song)” was shown, during this costume break. When she returned she was in black and gold and spoke very briefly about the video-tape.
She launched into a hard-driving rendition of “Silver Rain, which was enhanced by glittering confetti, which fell during the chorus, and the heavy punctuation provided throughout by bass and drums. These two songs reflected the animal lover side of Olivia, who once wanted to be a veterinarian. This and her next song “Make A Move On Me,” which brought the entire floor section to its feet, represented her last album, “Physical.”
To start the last act of the concert, she sang “Hopelessly Devoted To You” from “Grease.” Removing her gold top, she was in all black again and sang the duet from “Grease” called “You’re The One That I Want” with Tufano. A quick change back stage and she jogged back on stage to thunderous applause.
She wore an Illini jersey with white tennis shoes, shorts, and head band. Everyone knew it had to be “Physical” and she didn’t disappoint them. Getting only a half-hearted response when she asked the audience to join in on the chorus, she stopped the song for a few minutes to get everyone warmed-up.
The standing ovation when she finished brought her back for one more song: the very beautiful and loving “I Honestly Love You”.
I left the concert that night wishing I could see her again, but it will most likely be some time before she appears here again.
However, we can all get a chance to see her in an upcoming TV special and movie which may come out next year. I hope we will be enjoying her music for many more years to come.
by Albert Sapp.