Patti LaBelle shared her Love, Grace, Style, and a whole lot of Soul with Milwaukee

Rescheduled
Thank goodness the Godmother of Soul rescheduled her Milwaukee show, the one on 12/10/22 which was cut short due to a bomb threat. Thankfully, no bomb was found. Fans did not have to wait too long because Patti LaBelle shared her Love, Grace, Style, and a whole lot of Soul at Milwaukee’s Riverside Theater on 05/20/23. Many audience members I spoke with were using their tickets from 12/10/22, a total class act from the Riverside Theater and Patti LaBelle’s tour. I must also give a shout-out to the Milwaukee Police Department who were adequately visible and nonintrusive as guests entered the theater and found their seats.

The Venue
Milwaukee’s Riverside Theater opened in 1928, seats 2,450 people, and is part of the Pabst Theater Group. It was built as part of the Empire Office Building on Wisconsin Street and sits alongside the Milwaukee River. This theater survived the great depression by featuring vaudeville, then became a movie palace followed by a live performance venue (thankfully survived the covid shutdown with help from Save Our Stages). I could not possibly come up with an accurate number of times I have attended concerts and comedy shows here, while I can recall seeing performances by the late B.B. King, The Hendrix Experience, Craig Ferguson, Ron White, Lewis Black, Widespread Panic, Sixto Rodriguez, Diana Ross, and now Patti LaBelle. The staff is always incredibly helpful.

Opener
Opening for Patti LaBelle was Jeff Bradshaw, who is also the trombonist for Patti as well as The Roots, Mary J Blige, and JAY-Z. I found him to be a charismatic performer who really warmed up the audience by getting off the stage to perform within the audience. It was easy to see how the audience enjoyed him, as they pulled out their cellphones to record him while swaying to his music. His style is a great feel-good blend of soul, jazz, and hip-hop. He has that rare opening quality of being so unexpectedly enjoyable that I didn’t get impatient for his show to end even though I could hardly contain my excitement to experience Patti LaBelle perform before my eyes.

The Godmother of Soul
I first heard Patti LaBelle when “Lady Marmalade” was a quickly rising radio hit in late 1974. She remains the only singer who could turn a scream and a squeal into some sort of brilliant melodic sound, with a pleasing intensity that displays confidence and grace and has resonated with me over the past forty-nine years. If anyone ever tells you they don’t understand how a voice can be considered an instrument they need to listen to Patti LaBelle. I know and/or have journalistically covered so many wonderfully talented women with great range and beautiful voices, while not one of them can touch the perfectly angelic range of Patti LaBelle.

I immediately thought about how much I agree with what author/professor Mark Anthony Neal said when he described her: “LaBelle has been described as the Godmother of Soul, a master of one of America’s classic art forms, but that moniker ultimately fails to capture the singularity of her musical prowess: Perhaps more than any living performer, LaBelle sits at the intersections of soul and gospel, the former a genre that is indebted to the latter.”

Flowers and Goosebumps
Fans brought beautiful bouquets of flowers for Patti LaBelle, and throughout the show, Patti would give different audience members stems of lovely white lilies. The last time I can remember an audience bringing such tremendous bouquets of flowers was when I saw the late Queen of Soul, Aretha Franklin. I admire how there does not seem a better, classier way to honor any performer than with flowers.

I was already experiencing goosebumps as she was singing “Over The Rainbow” while walking from the audience to enter the stage. I also knew I had to keep it together, at least during the first few songs I was allowed to photograph, by not letting my spontaneous tearful reaction to her soulful performance hinder my work for this article. Meanwhile, everyone was on their feet with their cellphones held high, trying to record glimpses of her as she passed through them to take the stage. People were in awe and she removed her beautiful overdress while gracefully and purposefully taking command of the stage.

Next was “Something Special (Is Gonna Happen Tonight)” and that title quickly became a fact as the audience settled in with wide grins while trying to hand her flowers as she moved across the stage.

Patti graciously thanked everyone for attending the show and wanted to know how many of us had never seen her perform live before, and how many of us had previously seen her perform live. That was the only gesture needed for everyone to feel how much she really appreciated us. At another point during the show, she brought a large spray bottle of perfume and sprayed the wrists which were held up by those able to quickly move below where she was standing.

It is hard to say how many ovations she had for the simple reason we were doing the stand-up/sit-down applause after every song. The greatest points where the audience stood to applaud her were while she performed “Tennessee Whiskey,” “When You’ve Been Blessed (Feels Like Heaven),” “Something About The Name of Jesus,” “I Want To Know What Love Is,” and “Lady Marmalade.”

Lady Marmalade
It was during “Lady Marmalade” that she invited a few men and a woman from the audience to join her on stage, and she held mini singing and dancing auditions with each one. It became a bit comical, especially when one man could not sing at all and the audience burst into laughter.

She stood during the entire performance, only leaving the stage briefly to change from her beautiful white pantsuit, then a beautiful light blue pantsuit with giant angel sleeves, followed by a purple dress and jacket for “Lady Marmalade” and a snippet of “Bad Girls.”

At the very end of her show, Patti LaBelle scooped up the largest bouquet from a member of the audience and waved goodbye to us at the end of her performance. Absolutely nobody left this show before it ended.

I had a chance to talk with the woman who sat next to me after the show, as we shared how we have been Patti LaBelle fans since we were in grade school. We gushed about how healthy Patti LaBelle looked, how she continues to take great care of herself, how stunning her clothes were, how she has been a recording artist for the past sixty-one years, and how we were so fortunate to experience one of the most loving iconic performances either of us have seen.

Click Here for the Full Gallery of the Evening!

If you happened to capture any shots of the night, feel free to tag us on social media at Shutter 16 Magazine and throw in #Shutter16 and #TwitFromThePit for the world to see.

Setlist
Over The Rainbow
Something Special (Is Gonna Happen Tonight)
Love, Need and Want You
If You Asked Me To
The Right Kind of Lover
Tennessee Whiskey
If You Only Knew
When You Talk About Love
Somebody Loves You Baby (You Know Who It Is)
Yearning for Your Love – Jeff Bradshaw performance
On My Own
When You’ve Been Blessed (Feels Like Heaven)
Something About The Name Jesus
I Want To Know What Love Is
Lady Marmalade
Bad Girls

Patti LaBelle Tour
https://www.pattilabelle.com/touring