Proud Tina still rollin’ on LV concert stage

Monday, May 1, 2000 | 12:13 p.m.

Was that Tina Turner, sitting on a stool in the middle of a farewell concert performance Saturday night at the MGM Grand Garden Arena?

What happened to the always frenetic, bawdy woman of the '70s, '80s and '90s who was nonstop action and outrageous behavior? She wouldn't have been caught dead taking a load off her feet in the middle of a song in the old days.

But the still-voluptuous 60-year-old international star isn't ready for the old folks home yet.

Her performance before a sellout crowd of more than 15,000 was awesome and ageless, showing that the old girl still has a lot left to give. She just paces herself now.

Who can blame her? She is on a grueling international concert tour that began March 23 in Minneapolis and will have included more than 45 cities in this country before ending June 16 in East Rutherford, N.J. She then moves on to Europe for 20 more stops.

Billed as the "Twenty Four Seven Millennium Tour 2000," which is named after her latest album, released in February, Turner has said it will be her last major tour.

She's not quitting the business, which she has been in for more than 40 years. "I will be out there," she said. Las Vegas was stop No. 20. Her next appearance will be Wednesday in Sacramento.

Turner sat on the stool only briefly, and perhaps it was part of the act and not because of fatigue, but it is a subtle indication that she is a little more subdued now compared to years past when she had a mane of leonine hair, wore provocative miniskirts and pranced around the stage like a caged tiger, filling the air with sexual energy.

Her hair no longer flows; it is shorter and more chic. Her various costumes are more tasteful, only twice including short skirts that reveal the famous legs.

Like her legs, her persona has transcended time.

Turner doesn't so much carry a tune as shout it, belting out lyrics to such timeless hits as "What's Love Got to Do with It," the song that swept the Grammy awards in 1984 and restored her career.

Saturday's show opened with Turner singing "I Want to Take You Higher" while standing 20 feet above the stage on a "Hollywood Squares"-like set. As she made her way down a series of steps to the stage floor it gave the audience the chance to marvel at the provocative body, clad in a snug black leather outfit.

For the next two hours Turner, whose voice has lost some of the range it once had, enthralled the crowd with a few of the songs that made her a legend: "I Heard It Through the Grapevine," "Acid Queen" and "Addicted to Love," to name a few.

The only complaint about the evening was that at times Turner's voice was almost overpowered by the band. But no one seemed bothered as the adoring crowd got caught up in Turner's magnetism.

She ended the show with "Proud Mary" and then "Nutbush City Limits," standing on the platform of a crane that swung out over the audience, giving the lucky ones a last close-up look at the woman who was born in Nutbush City, Tenn., and strutted her way to stardom.

Lionel Richie opens for Turner on this tour. That gives the multitalented performer the chance to revitalize a career that began in the mid-'70s with the Commodores, reached its peak in the mid-'80s as a solo act and then hit a wall when he encountered a number of overwhelming personal problems.

Clad in velour shirt and pants with a hint of bell-bottoms, Richie brought back memories to an appreciative audience, who chimed in as he sang many of his hits such as "Dancing on the Ceiling," "All Night Long," "Say You, Say Me" and "We are the World."