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Cher’s Friday-night stop at the Enterprise Center as part of her Here We Go Again Tour played to a capacity audience of exultant fans, all of them on-hand to celebrate the life and times of the evening’s headliner. Although not following an exact chronological formula, the evening ran through different eras of the pop singer’s multiple decades in the public eye, with a show high on wow factor, featuring a crack backing band and a troupe of dancers and aerialists. Performing energetically a week and change before her 73rd birthday, Cher had the crowd in the palm of her hand even before the concert, as she waved to side sections of the audience from behind the stage curtain to raucous, emotional ovations.
Opening with a pair of crowd-pleasers via “Woman’s World” and “Strong Enough,” Cher paused for a lengthy, amusing monologue about her memorable 40th birthday, after which multiple shifts in staging and pacing kept coming. Costume changes were accompanied by dramatic switches of scene and time through lighting and video projection; as example, she sang a duet of “I Got You Babe” alongside the late Sonny Bono via video, one of the night’s early high points. Mid-way, she performed a three-song, mini set from ABBA’s catalog, reflecting her deep dive into that band’s work in recent years. Interstitial videos covered moments of her personal life, early TV career and successful time in Hollywood. Baked into the evening’s experience were plenty of cues to Cher’s large, avid LGBTQ fanbase, who showed in force.
By the time of the set-closing megahits—“If I Could Turn Back Time,” performed in her '80s-era black lingerie bodysuit to adoring audience feedback; and an extended, joyful closer with the earworm “Believe”—the room’s emotional level had gone fully into tilt mode as Cher power-walked from one side of the stage to the other, sections of the audience erupting into cheers and tears with her arrival. As soon as that anthemic pop masterwork concluded, house lights rose and a collective “let’s talk about all that” conversation spilled into downtown streets and nearby bars and restaurants.
Large numbers of the bedazzled, salt-and-pepper crowd were still caught in lengthy ticket lines as the night’s opener, Nile Rodgers & Chic, performed a set of hits. Headed up by the songwriter, producer, and funk guitarist, this contemporary version of the legendary Chic had many fans dancing to pop classics like “Le Freak” and “Good Times,” a thoroughly crowd-pleasing introduction to the spectacle ahead.
Photos of Nile Rodgers & Chic:
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