Adelaide Cabaret Festival: Darlene proves that all you need is Love in soul-stirring journey to rock’n’roll fame
Darlene Love defies the decades in astonishing form to embrace the success and recognition that eluded her for so long.
At 75, she still has the pipes — and the pins — to not only blast the roof off the Festival Theatre on her 1960s soul, pop and rock classics but to also shake and shimmy across the stage in a shimmering silver dress and staggeringly high stilettos.
From the opening notes of He’s Sure The Boy I Love, the audience knew they were in the presence of rock’n’roll royalty.
The bubblegum pop harmonies of Wait Til My Bobby Gets Home led straight into a singalong on Da Doo Ron Ron and the swinging soul of Today I Met The Boy I’m Gonna Marry — a single which finally came out under Love’s own name, instead of being attributed to The Crystals.
Backed by five-piece band, five-piece horn section and four harmony singers, Love paid tribute to Marvin Gaye with Ain’t That Peculiar/You’re All I Need To Get By/Ain’t No Mountain High Enough/What’s Going On and Roberta Flack on a punchy rendition of Killing Me Softly/Where is the Love before giving us even more Soul and Inspiration.
She reprised her Academy Award acceptance with a soul-stirring gospel verse of His Eye is on the Sparrow, took more of a ballad approach to Lean on Me and sent a shiver down the spine with her first, uncredited hit on He’s A Rebel.
It was her soaring encore of River Deep, Mountain High, however, that had the crowd on its feet — finally giving Love the adulation she was denied when producer Phil Spector decided instead to turn the song over to Tina Turner.
