Tina Rough At SPAC; Awaiting Her, Rougher

by Bill Rice, The Troy Record, September 4, 1972

At the beginning of her big song, Proud Mary, Tina Turner explains, “We never do nuthin’ nice and easy, we do everything nice and rough.”

Her statement pretty well sums up the Ike and Tina Turner Revue, seen Saturday evening at the Saraloga Performing Arts Center. While Tina is perhaps most torrid performer in popular music today, the show did have its rough edges, and despite her dynamic performance it was not as exciting as it was supposed to be.

For one thing, it took too long for the stars of the show to arrive on stage. Opening the concert at 8:30 was a four-man rock group, the Pure Food and Drug Act, that shouldn’t have been there. Sinclair Lewis would have written a book about them. Ignoring the boos from the audience, they long overstayed their welcome on stage.

Following intermission, the Turners’ band, the Family Vibes appeared on stage, but not Ike and Tina. First, the three girls who dance and sing behind Tina, the Ikettes, came out and did a couple of numbers. This almost turned out to be a comedy routine as one of the girls was obviously brand-new to the group and was getting on-the-job training.

Best She Could

The girl did the best she could, and will surely be an asset to the show once she learns the routine, but it was interesting that she wasn’t up to the other girls in terms of physical stamina yet either. About midway through, while the other two gals were still fresh and smiling as they went through their steps and synchronized movements, she looked as if she were about ready to faint.

Any of you girls out there who are thinking of trying out as an Ikette someday had better put in about two weeks of roadwork beforehand. It’s not as easy as it looks.

After the Ikettes, the band cut loose with Shaft, on their own, and followed this with 25 or Six to Four (by Chicago) and a couple of R & B numbers.

Unlike the first half of the concert, which was a complețe waste of time, the Ikettes and the band were a good warm-up for Ike and Tina, but the stars didn’t arrive on stage until 10:30, and we submit that two hours is far too long a time for an audience to have to sit and wait for the people they have paid to see.

Ike and Tina ran through Son of a Preacher Man, Get Back, Games People Play, With a Little Help From My Friends, Proud Mary, among others, and concluded with Honky-Tonk Woman for an encore.

In Background

Ike Turner stays in the background throughout the show, leading the band on guitar and occasionally lending his deep bass voice, as on Proud Mary. It could be a more interesting show if he got into the act more.

There were obviously many in ¡the audience who found Tina’s screaming performance exciting, but we felt it was more frantic than inspired. Like the giri said, they never do anything nice and easy, and from our point of view it would be better if they did, once in a while at least.

Post Views: 24