Express & Star

Lulu, Wolverhampton Grand Theatre - review

Lulu is a living legend; stylish and stunning with a superb amount of energy, she shone just as bright as her stage set.

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Lulu performing in 2017. (C)DODMORRISON.COM

The sprightly 68-year-old star moved with ease, laughed a lot and was surrounded by a younger six-piece band, all of which were aged around 30, that she could not have fit in better with on stage at the Wolverhampton Grand Theatre.

Her vocals were timeless and packed out the 1,200-seat theatre with a crowd with an average age of around 60, who would have grown up with her since she first hit the scene in the 1960s.

As a 21-year-old myself who went with my nan, we both thoroughly enjoyed her performance on her All About the Music Tour. The show merged the old with the new, making it fantastic fun for everyone involved.

During the set, Lulu reminisced about the Bee Gees' songwriting during her marriage to Maurice Gibbs and tickled the audience by imitating their soprano singing during a rendition of Run to Me. In the next moment, she delivered a powerful rendition of Ex’s and Oh’s by Elle King.

She could very well have been the teenage Lulu who shot to fame but with 1,000 times more confidence, donning a black outfit with flared trousers and a tasselled top for the first part and, after the interlude, she bounded back on stage in a denim jack with sequinned arms and a pair of converse.

Lulu performing in 1970s

The pop, rock and soul singer bobbed around the stage and would suddenly drop to her knees on occasion or show off her flexibility by bending over and touching her head to her knees.

The only let down was the crowd who would break out into cheers and whistle at the end of each song, but during the performance there was little more than a couple of people standing up and dancing, with the occasional light foot tapping and head bobbing - but she called them out on it.

“You lot aren’t crazy like me, you’re more conservative I can tell,” she joked in a light American accent.

A performance of Relight My Fire, which she made with Take That, got more of a reaction from the crowd. In a touching moment she invited a Rainbow Voices Midland Choir, an LGBT group, onto the stage who performed the back up vocals for the hit.

"I'm a glass half full kind of girl, not a glass half empty. In my 40s I was asked to be in a boy band and I said are you having a laugh. It got to number one and I had so much fun."

She has gone from black and white on the TV, to all the colours on stage with a spectacular lights show that flashed and shone with the fast beat of the drums.

To introduce To Sir With Love, her hit James Bond Song, red lights mocked lasers. It was 50 years on from when the track was top of the US charts for six weeks and she also treated the audience to her other Bond song, The Man with the Golden Gun.

Tributes were made to the late icons David Bowie, with whom she briefly had an affair, by singing The Man Who Sold the World, which they performed together in 1974, and more also Tom Petty, by performing Stop Draggin' My Heart Around.

The night ended on a high with her 1964 chart topper Shout.

“Stay forever. Stay forever young,” she bellowed with a laugh, knowing that is exactly what she had done.