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When Tina Turner introduced her world tour to Calgary in 2000, she blew the doorways off the Saddledome. With Turner dying at age 83 on Wednesday, we pulled out the archive photographs and overview of that live performance. Not surprisingly, the live performance was stellar.

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“It was onerous to maintain your eyes off Turner,” Herald music author Heath McCoy stated in his overview of the live performance.

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“Turner was spectacular,” he wrote. “If this actually is her final main world tour, as she’s claimed, then she stated her goodbyes to Calgary with a mighty roar.”

Earlier than the live performance, the Herald revealed this function on Turner:

Hurricane Tina: Queen of rock ‘n’ roll to hit Calgary

Thu Nov 23 2000
Web page: C1
Part: Arts & Fashion
Byline: Heath Jon McCoy, Calgary Herald

Preview / Tina Turner performs with opening act Joe Cocker Saturday on the Saddledome. / The present is bought out.

No person expects youthful ardour or the outdated blazing depth from rock’s senior alumni anymore — whether or not it’s the Rolling Stones, Rod Stewart or the Who.

However when Tina Turner steps out on the Saddledome stage Saturday, sooner or later earlier than her 61st birthday, likelihood is the explosive energy of this five-foot-three dynamo can be as volcanic because it was one, two and three many years in the past.

Experiences from earlier stops on her present tour say she emanates hearth, sweat and rapture each time she steps on a stage to belt out her basic hits. Turner has survived brutal beatings, each actually and figuratively, and has the scars to indicate for it.

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But regardless of all of it, she stays a powerhouse performer — a hurricane in a brief skirt tearing up the stage.

Cynics would possibly dismiss Turner’s tour, which she says is her final, as yet one more safely packaged nostalgia act for child boomers. However such a dismissal is just too simple, and it’s wholly unfair to certainly one of rock’s preeminent figures.

Turner’s roots return to the early days of rock ‘n’ roll. She was born Anna Mae Bullock, a farm woman in Nutbush, Tenn., the second daughter of a black Baptist preacher and a black Cherokee Indian mom. Turner’s biographer Kurt Loder described the house as a ”parental conflict zone.”

In an interview with the Nationwide Submit earlier this yr, Turner stated: ”Ma and I had been by no means shut. . . . Once I was born, my mom didn’t need one other child, in order that meant I all the time felt like I shouldn’t be right here. . . . I imagine it’s as a result of I wasn’t that shut along with her that I’m as robust and profitable as I’m as we speak. There’s no dependence.”

Regardless of the harsh relationship, Anna Mae and her sister adopted their mom to St. Louis, Mo., after their dad and mom separated. Right here she met the charismatic however more and more bitter Ike Turner, a proficient producer and songwriter repeatedly betrayed by different musicians who took credit score for his work. Their first encounter got here as he was making an attempt to revive his sagging profession, enjoying within the nightclubs Anna Mae and her sister frequented.

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Anna Mae, who had been singing within the church choir and expertise exhibits since she was a baby, requested Ike if she may sing together with his band. When he ignored her pleas, she merely jumped onstage one night time, grabbed the microphone and belted out a music. It was an ungainly audition, however one she handed.

Ike quickly modified her title to Tina, after a white jungle goddess from a Saturday afternoon matinee, and commenced constructing his band across the fiery vocalist. Although she wasn’t Ike’s lover at first (in 1958, she gave start to her first son, fathered by one other musician within the band), Ike christened their act the Ike and Tina Turner Revue. They had been backed up by 9 musicians and three scantily clad backup singers dubbed the Ikettes.

They turned a serious soul act within the ’60s, and Tina more and more stole the highlight. In a 1993 article, London’s Sunday Telegraph wrote: ”Whereas (Ike) stalked the again of the stage, brooding over his guitar, Tina (turned) the very mannequin of molten sexuality. Flanked by the shimmying mini-skirted Ikettes . . . Tina would take the stage in micro-skirts, lengthy legs pumping like pistons, hair flying, mouth poised provocatively over the microphone, in shapes of sexual ecstasy. . . . A younger Mick Jagger, trembling within the wings, would later incorporate lots of her gestures into his personal performances.”

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Someplace alongside the best way, the duo did change into a pair, and married in 1962. Based on Turner, her relationship along with her husband was marked by bodily and psychological abuse from the beginning. Ike, who was changing into hooked on cocaine, was additionally flaunting his sexual liaisons with the Ikettes. He pressured Tina to carry out whereas pregnant and unwell — on one event, after he had damaged her jaw.

He shattered her nostril so many occasions, one nostril was completely blocked by cartilage.

Turner has additionally accused him in print of raping her over the course of their 16-year marriage.

Ike doesn’t deny battering his spouse, however he has insisted her model of occasions just isn’t completely true. When requested by Vainness Honest concerning the frequency of the abuse, he replied: ”That’s the most important lie . . . I didn’t hit her any greater than you been hit by your man.”

By 1976, the hits had dried up for Ike and Tina. Regardless of a scene-stealing function for Turner because the Acid Queen in The Who’s Tommy the earlier yr, the Turners had been scraping all-time low. Ike turned much more brutal. After one final livid battle in the midst of a tour, Turner
left Ike with solely 36 cents and a gasoline firm bank card to her title.

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The following few years had been a battle for Turner. She raised 4 kids, whereas at one level dwelling on meals stamps, and was hounded by Ike’s collectors. She took work wherever she may, accepting low-end leisure gigs in lodge lounges and third-rate cabarets, and at McDonalds conventions.

However in 1979, Turner’s luck turned. She appeared as a visitor star on an Olivia Newton-John tv particular and met the Australian singer’s supervisor, Roger Davies, who could be instrumental in reviving her picture.

Davies stated he was impressed to assist Turner as a result of she was nonetheless a magnetic performer. Even at company gigs, she’d have folks dancing on the tables. And he appreciated her angle.

”So many artists who’ve had success both have a chip on their shoulder or suppose they know every thing,” Davies stated in a 1993 interview. ”She was totally different, she was hungry and extremely decided.”

At first Davis may solely guide Turner on excursions in locations equivalent to Poland, Bahrain and Singapore. Then a type of miracle occurred: he acquired her the opening slot on the Rolling Stones’ 1981 tour. The Stones liked her; audiences went loopy over her. Then, on the advice of David Bowie, Turner secured her first solo recording contract with Capitol Information. The album she turned in was 1984’s Non-public Dancer, and immediately the stage was set for the comeback of the last decade.

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Non-public Dancer bought 12 million items, and in 1985 Turner took house three Grammy Awards and turned heads with a starring flip because the wild-eyed Auntie Entity within the Mel Gibson movie, Mad Max Past Thunderdome.

Her subsequent albums have racked up mixed gross sales of roughly 20 million. Whereas she hasn’t had successful report in years, her excursions are nonetheless spectacularly profitable, significantly in Europe the place she has outdrawn Madonna and the Rolling Stones.

In the present day, Turner lives in Switzerland with Erwin Bach, a 44-year-old report govt, having fun with an virtually regal way of life. She clothes exquisitely, favours holistic drugs and enjoys Cristal champagne. She can also be a follower of Shoshu Buddhism — referred to by some as designer Buddhism due to its giant following within the pop and vogue worlds. Consistent with this, she believes in reincarnation and is claimed to have informed mates that she was as soon as Nefertiti, Queen of Egypt.

Ike and Tina Turner had been inducted into the Rock ‘n’ Roll Corridor of Fame in 1991. Ike couldn’t make it. After 11 arrests on varied fees, he was convicted of possessing and transporting cocaine and was in the midst of an 18-month jail time period the night time of the awards.

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When requested earlier this yr if her struggles helped pave the best way for feminine solo acts equivalent to Shania Twain, Celine Dion and Alanis Morissette, Turner replied: ”, I’ve been round a very long time, and it makes me suppose that one thing good got here from on a regular basis I’ve invested in my profession. I’ve change into some type of function mannequin and inspiration for the youthful ladies as we speak, even when on the time I used to be doing it, it felt type of destructive. . . . So I really feel that I gave one thing.

”I really feel that these years had been all worthwhile.”

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Later that yr, this Related Press article indicated Tina Turner raked in probably the most money in concert events in 2000.

Tina Turner tops in ticket gross sales: Veteran singer took in most money on live performance circuit

Fri Dec 29 2000
Web page: C4
Byline: David Bauder, The Related Press

Proving older musicians nonetheless have legs within the market, Tina Turner outpaced teen heartthrobs ‘N Sync to generate probably the most cash on the live performance circuit in 2000.

Live performance ticket costs started to stage off after years of rising quickly, and there have been worries of a slowdown, in line with an annual survey by the commerce publication Pollstar.

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Turner, 61, took in $80.2 million US in ticket gross sales for 95 concert events. Her success shocked specialists as a result of it’s been a number of years since she’s had successful report.

”She had introduced it was going to be her farewell tour,” stated Pollstar editor Gary Bongiovanni, ”and folks took her at her phrase.”

Possibly that may begin a pattern, though Kiss had much less success on its farewell tour. The costumed rockers’ lengthy goodbye raked in $62.7 million for a whopping 128 concert events — and extra are deliberate for 2001.

‘N Sync obtained $76.4 million to put second on Pollstar’s record of ticket revenues. The boy band bought extra tickets than anybody this yr, its 1.6 million edging the Dave Matthews Band.

Teen pop goes full steam: ‘N Sync, Britney Spears, Christina Aguilera and the Backstreet Boys collectively bought 4 million tickets and took in $156 million, the journal stated.

Dixie Chicks and the double invoice of married nation acts Religion Hill and Tim McGraw did huge enterprise too, together with the reunions of veteran rockers Bruce Springsteen & the E Road Band and Crosby, Stills, Nash & Younger.

Whereas the rock band Creed generated $26.2 million from 79 concert events, Barbra Streisand made extra economical use of her time — she acquired $27 million for under 4 exhibits. Streisand’s common ticket value was $471.27.

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An estimated $1.7 billion in live performance tickets had been bought in 2000, up from final yr’s report $1.5 billion, the journal stated.

The common live performance ticket value was $43.75 this yr, nearly unchanged from final yr’s $43.63. Between 1998 and 1999, costs had jumped 30 per cent.

Promoters noticed spotty gross sales throughout the previous few months. Some within the business fear ticket costs have elevated a lot because the final recession, if there’s one other downturn, a live performance can be thought of a luxurious, Bongiovanni stated.

Backstreet Boys, U2 and Pink Floyd are among the many artists anticipated to hit the street in 2001. Whereas they received’t have a lot bother promoting tickets, others would possibly undergo, he stated.

”As issues tighten up, the extra marginal acts can have a a lot harder time. In the event that they exit and promote between $45 and $80 a ticket, they’ll see oceans of empty seats.”

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