The evolution
from 22-year-old sexy pin-up, Prince-dating, Miami
Vice-starring to 45-year-old wholesome, mother-of-two
can’t have been an easy one.
She is now the
sweet cuddly old-friend you’ll invite over
for tea and biscuits to chat about old times and
bad hairstyles.
However, Easton
seems to have enjoyed the metamorphosis from sexy
pin-up to personable performer/mother. Yup, she
is proof that pop stars can age gracefully.
On stage, she
swings her childbearing hips with pride and pokes
fun at herself.
“I’m
an old gal,” she proclaimed, in between
songs at the Genting International Showroom last
weekend. Easton played the first of two live shows
on April fool’s day to more than 400 people.
“People
have this image of me from the 1980s and some
come up to me and say, ‘You look different!’
I used to get stressed about it but I’ve
realised that if they are old enough to remember
those images, the chances are, they probably look
different too!”
Easton is affable on stage and has a sense of
humour. Gone are the sexually-charged performances
associated with her 1980s commercial heyday. The
new-millennium Easton is as safe as mother’s
milk. She’s a singer with poise and grace,
who politely entertains the crowd with generous
Streisand-type banter (“Talk among yourselves,”
she jokes during an awkward silence when the band
begins a song a few seconds too late).
Backed by a five-piece
band that included a saxophonist, Easton was charismatic
enough to escape the dreaded “dinner-show
entertainment” grade. First off, there weren’t
umpteen-costume changes and secondly, and perhaps
more importantly, she still conveyed her brand
of pop convincingly enough.
After all these
years, Easton still believes in the power of song.
There was no sleepwalking through her songs, neither
was there a “let’s just hit the notes
and get it over with” attitude that you
get with run-off-the-mill nostalgia acts.
Easton delivered
the goods – from the sombre dewy-eyed balladry
of Almost Over You to the majestic Bond theme
For Your Eyes Only. And she did so with much precision
and care.
Easton may not
have that big Mariah/Whitney voice, but every
note was clear and expressive, even when she “borrowed”
songs like Aretha Franklin’s Say A Little
Prayer or Bette Midler’s modern hymn, From
A Distance.
Dressed in an
elegant white suit throughout the show, she also
dedicated the classic Stephen Sondheim composition
Not While I’m Around to her children.
There was pin-drop
silence when she proclaimed that the best thing
about her life was being a mother, obviously touching
the audience.
The two-time Grammy-award
winning (she was Best New Artiste in 1982) performer
also did a medley of the Prince-written Sugar
Walls and duet You Got the Look (the Prince-vocals
done by back-up singer Philip Ingram).
Here again, she
poked fun at herself by re-enacting the “bootylicious”
moves from the 1980s videos ? pouts and all.
“I get to
relive my youth every night,” she joked,
before launching into polite, almost tongue-in-cheek
funk versions of the songs.
The big-ballad,
We’ve Got Tonight was another highlight
of the evening. (The Bob Seger song was a hit
for her and Kenny Rogers in the 1980s; and for
the benefit of you younger readers; yes it’s
the same bearded dude with the Roast Chicken fast-food
franchise and yes, he had a singing career before
that.)
The show was a
subdued and polite pleasure; with some up-tempo
numbers from the 1980s to get your booty shaking
(like Strut, The Lover In Me and the infectious
Morning Train).
Easton sang and
chatted with the audience for over an hour and
climaxed with the encore – the bubbly synth-pop
of Telefone.
Sheena Easton
live was not a take-no-prisoners, “Wham!
Bam! Thank you ma’am” experience.
It was more of an evening of song than a thrill-packed
power-pop show.
The show left
you with a pleasant after taste: Easton had exhibited
style and class...and she did it without the hair
gel.
