The Magic of Motown  20th Anniversary Tour

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A feel good revue featuring one of the most prolific  hits factories in popular music featuring classic songs , glittering costumes, dazzling dance routines produced with a live band on stage

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The hits keep on coming made famous by  : Marvin Gaye, Diana Ross, Stevie Wonder, The Temptations, The Supremes, The Four Tops, Martha Reeves, The Jackson 5, Smokey Robinson, and many, many more.

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But more than anything this is a tribute to  the man who made Motown – Berry Gordy .

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Friday night is party night in the UK’s Second City giving th performer a helping hand as the packed lower tiers danced the night away.

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This was the big show of the tour and at times the performers comprising four male singer, three female singers and four musicians struggled to  make the leap from end of pier venues to this world famous one.

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The three women sang and danced better than the men and were far more convincing as the Supremes than the men were as the Four Tops. The men appeared more intent on personal vocal gymnastics than ensemble work  with some of the harmonies poor and suffered from weak choreographed dance routines. The Jackson Five segment was embarrassing.

The girls found their groove early on with “Touch me in the Morning”  and a crowd igniting “Chain Reaction” the boys struggled to sell the narrative of their songs as they sang them. “ Heard it through the grapevine” was the worst cover I have ever seen  and heard( clapped star jumps mid chorus? – WTF) “Just my Imagination” and “Tracks of my tears” similarly misfired. However they stormed through “ This Old Heart of Mine” for their “Chain reaction” moment and the Four Tops segment was particularly strong, notably “ Standing In the Shadows of Love” but inexplicable missed out “Don’t walk away Renee”.

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Similarly the Stevie Wonder segment omitted “Uptight” and “Signed Sealed delivered I’m Yours. But did include a cringeworthy sunglasses moment for the blind performer.

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Bizarrely, the revenue from a healthy sized audience was not deemed enough to pay  for an onstage brass section, although the podium was there with the keyboard player having to work doubly hard as a consequence a big black mark against the producers “ The Entertainers”.

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However the crowd loved it and were universally positive about the experience- for me though and the cognoscenti it was a case of what might have been