Diana Ross sang hit after hit at The Filene Center, August 14th. Again, a sold out concert of over 7,000 people and this was the least planning by the audience. The show started promptly at 8pm. Diana came flowing out in beaded, cherry red perfection.
She rolled through hits in chronological era order. Starting with, “My World Is Empty Without You”, which I heard from the parking lot. I made the fatal error of getting to Wolf Trap around 7pm and never made it into the concert until 8:15pm. As I was walking up with the hoards of people, everyone around me said, “don’t worry it’s the opening act”, which it was not…unless they were singing all of The Supremes songs?
A significant number of people that I spoke with thought there was an opening act and planned to come late, on purpose. One lady told me that she didn’t even leave her house until 8pm! Apparently a lot of people had the same idea and some people didn’t get to their seats until 9pm. The problem was that with lack of audience planning, at 8:35, when most of the audience had finally reached their seats, Diana was on costume change 3 and well-through her hits. At 9:15, the lights came up and some people (who had only just sat) stayed right where they were, despite the mass exodus. They figured that it was intermission. Normally, they would have been correct, but we hit all of the hits and Diana had already left the premises. People were upset and disappointed.
While I completely understand that there was upset over the running time, she sang everything and even covered, “I Will Survive”. I think she needed to have an opening act or make it abundantly clear that the concert will be quick. I’m all for the quick concert…sing your hits, do it flawlessly, make some gorgeous costume changes, and run! It was never stated on the Wolf Trap website that she was going to do it like that and apparently that detail would have been helpful to a lot of people. As I have said a few times over this season, if it’s a sold out show, you need to plan to get there around 6-6:30 and just hang. Parking is riotous for that many people, there.
As far as the actual concert, Diana was gorgeous, her gowns spanned the rainbow and got sexier as the concert went on. What was truly triumphant, after just seeing Ke$ha two days earlier, was the production value. Diana started in red, flawlessly changed into royal blue perfection, then seamlessly transformed into sexy black with a heavenly Maribel coat, which she quickly ditched to reveal just how sexy the black dress was, with see-through sides! She then brightened up with a fantastic orange gown and matching chiffon cape, which was to close the show, but actually ended in her sweats for an unprepared encore. The point is that her gowns were floor-length and detailed and yet, she was on and offstage in no time.
The real treat was that when she departed, something was still happening onstage. There was music still going, the horn section did a whole solo, her back-up singers took center stage and kept the party going….something of real interest was happening. Unlike the Ke$ha concert, where she changed the same amount of times from undergarment to latex undergarment, but left the stage unceremoniously and showed videos of her rolling around in the floor! She could learn a thing or twenty from Diana! Anyway, back to Diana…the crowd overall was very pleased and she was exhilarating to watch. Amazing energy and she looked like she was having a great time and even got choked up when we wanted the encore. Apparently, she wasn’t expecting so much love from Northern Virginia!
Soundman Dave had his work cutout for him, but Ross travels with her own DigiDesign Engineer, Todd. Both men, did an excellent job and the sound quality was brilliant. I would be interested to hear her without that level of technology, but she was awesome! I definitely recommend seeing her and I hope she is back at Wolf Trap next year!
Overall: A+, you can’t get better than Diana Ross!
Venue: B+, parking was really a disorganized nightmare for this one. There were people cutting around people, trying to turn from three cars wide, getting upset and cutting across the grass and the police did little help that day. Usually, there is a little more direction and a plan, but it was chaotic.
Believe it or not, Diana Ross does not have a website, but she has some very dedicated fan sites that are in the know of her concert whereabouts. For those, go to www.dianaross.de or www.diana-web.com
or go to www.ticketmaster.com
Of course check out www.wolftrap.org for the rest of The Filene Center season and the upcoming Barns season.
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