Close Up With Reba Mcentire Singer Invites Audience Into Livingroom Of Her Life Through Song, Storytelling
Reba McEntire Thursday night, Feb. 3, at the Spokane Arena’s Star Theatre
What do you say about a show like this?
Powerful, poignant and personal, for starters. Plus, it dished up a visual and aural feast.
Reba McEntire produced a smooth blend of theater and concert in her biographical show, called “The Singer’s Diary.”
The highlights began when the lights first dimmed and continued clear until Reba waved good night two hours later.
During the first hour, Reba told her story with class and grace, but not conceit. She had all the trappings of Broadway: six skilled dancers, dynamite lighting, well-designed sets and backdrops, scrims that flew in and out, and her usual crack musicians. As set after set floated in and out on platforms, Reba talked and sang about her tough but blessed life, from her discovery in 1974 to a fateful plane crash in 1991.
The show began with scenes on a large video screen of Oklahoma highways running straight through endless prairies. Scratchy snippets of legendary songs such as Johnny Cash’s “Ring of Fire” played, as if on an ancient AM truck radio. Reba started talking, “It’s been a long road …”
Fuzzy family photos showed her rodeo champion grandpa and father. And Reba barrel racing. She then came out singing “The Star-Spangled Banner,” the song that led to her discovery at a rodeo.
After Reba talked about her fears of first leaving home, her mother came on a video screen in a documentary interview. She revealed how she had lived her musical dream through her daughter.
A stage set of a recording studio then appeared for Reba’s first taping session. After the storyline moved through her first marriage, Reba belted out a potent version of “Respect,” with help from her two female dancers.
Reba sang touching songs about her marriage to a longtime member of her band, Narvel Blackstock (“Where You End and I Begin”), and her relationship with her father (“The Greatest Man I Never Knew”).
The most moving moment, though, came when she talked in a wavering voice about losing seven members of her band and her road manager in a plane crash in 1991. While she sang “If I Had Only Known,” many eyes misted in the audience.
While Reba featured mostly ballads during the first hour, the second half rocked and rocked, each song with its own set and action. Shorn of long hair, Reba blasted out “Walk On” and “Is There Life Out There.”
An electrifying version of “Why Haven’t I Heard From You” spotlighted the six dancers in a show of strength and agility while they played with phones.
Reba, dressed in a short black dress, wowed the crowd during “Fancy.” In the middle of the song, the lighting clicked off for a split second, and Reba reappeared in a full-length red gown. The dazzled audience cheered.
While she sang her current hit, “What Do You Say,” the large video monitor traced the emotional story of a family of four losing their wife and mother to cancer.
After the standard power duet with Linda Davis on “Does He Love You,” Reba closed out the evening with the fitting “We’re So Good Together,” another song off her new album which she sang as a tribute to her fans.
Everyone then came out for a bow while her bus driver, featured in a couple of humorous video interviews, strolled through trying to read a map.
Much more than a singer, Reba is the consummate entertainer. The theatrics and storytelling enhanced her songs in a very satisfying way.
The intimacy of the Star Theatre, which curtains off half the Arena, was a big plus. It allowed a close encounter of the best kind.
This sidebar appeared with the story:
FOOD DONATIONS
310 pounds collected
Spokane’s Salvation Army collected 310 pounds of food during Reba McEntire’s show Thursday night.
The organization’s community relations director, Deanna Bren, said the donations were high quality, with lots of protein foods, and with some supplemental staples from the Savation Army would serve about a dozen families with three to five days worth of food.