This is a mix we put together right after witnessing the magic of ‘Stevie Wonder’ live @ Acer Arena, Sydney, October 22 2008, its a mix with some of the Funk, Foul & Disco gems of he has put out over the year. It should be perfect for an Australia Day BBQ  in the sun,

Happy Australia Day!!

Soul of Sydney

Track List

1. Stevie Wonder – Have A Talk With God
2. Stevie Wonder – Pastime Paradise
3. Stevie Wonder – Living Just Enough For The City
4. Stevie Wonder – Superstition
5. Stevie Wonder – You Haven’t Done Nothin’
6. Stevie Wonder – Ebony Eyes
7. Stevie Wonder – Summer Soft (OHM Collective EDIT)
8. Stevie Wonder – All Day Sucker
9. Stevie Wonder – I Wish
10. Stevie Wonder – That Girl
11. Stevie Wonder – Sir Duke
12. Stevie Wonder – Boogie On Reggae Woman
13. Stevie Wonder – Signed Sealed Delivered I’m Yours
14. Stevie Wonder – Black Man
15. Stevie Wonder – Do I Do
16. Stevie Wonder – Isn’t She Lovely
17. Stevie Wonder – Another Star
18. Stevie Wonder – Confusion
19. Stevie Wonder – Masterblaster (Jammin’)
20. Stevie Wonder – Part-Time Lover

Special thanks to:

Australian Rozie @  Flickr for use of her ticket image

STEVIE WONDER

Acer Arena, October 22

Australian Rozie @ Flickr

ARE you with me? Are we together?” cried Stevie Wonder at the top of a reggae-tinged Master Blaster, asking perhaps the most superfluous question in the history of questions. If love was in need of love in 1976 – as the man born Stevland Hardaway Judkins put it on his classic album Songs In The Key Of Life – there was certainly no shortage of it last night.

Wonder gave love, dedicating the whole show to the Four Tops singer Levi Stubbs, who died this week, before a jubilant rendition of the soul band’s classic I Can’t Help Myself. (It ended with Wonder crying visible tears.)

And boy, did he receive love. Before his daughter, Aisha Morris, had even led him all the way to his piano and banks of keyboards, the sold-out arena screamed with adulation.

Wonder at first just ambled towards the centre of the stage, beat-boxing to himself. Then he pulled out a harmonica, jammed along with his band to a Miles Davis jazz classic and pretty much earned every last scream.

His band was deliciously tight – a crack 14-piece unit including multiple horns, guitars and percussionists – and their leader almost shone with the star power and charisma you expected. You can still see that he really feels the music, loves hearing it and can’t get enough of playing it.

Sure, but it’s hard to think he could put a foot wrong. Really, he could have just stood at the stage for two hours humming to himself and this would have been a triumph. As it was, he played some mighty fine soul and funk as well as the occasional flourish of jazz and reggae groove.

By the end of the show we’d seen it all. A suspiciously good singer, “plucked out of the audience”, duetting with his idol; a barrage of hits, good and not so good (but still irresistible), often jazzed up. And the presentation of a lifetime achievement award for sales in excess of 1 million in Australia before a roof-raising Superstition.

It was all about the love.

By George Palathingal
@ Sydney Morning Herald,October 23, 2008

Video Highlights of the Stevie Wonder Concert @ Acer Arena, October 22