Earth, Wind and Fire at Ruth Eckerd Hall Make the World a Better Place

Amidst the thunderstorms during hurricane season, Earth, Wind and Fire came to Clearwater on Tuesday Night, June 29th, 2010. With no opener, there was a full house promptly at 8pm in anticipation of the performance.

With the exception of the Backstreet Boys concert, I’m pretty sure that Ruth Eckerd Hall hosts almost the same audience with every show. People-watching was quite interesting and the crowd was pretty diverse. The EWF stage set-up was filled with percussion, bongos, snares, and a full on drum set. There were instruments all over the place!

The lights dimmed and the show had begun. About nine musicians took the stage with no sign yet of the three main men that made up Earth, Wind and Fire. Red lights, a loud instrumental introduction, and a circular opaque screen allowed EWF to take the stage as a kind of retro-psychadelic – funkadelic aura hit the crowd. Everyone was standing up and ready to take a trip back to the 70’s and party!

The bass player had leopard-fringed bell-bottoms on with a puffy white shirt that was something out of Seinfeld, while the two lead singers wore sparkly, loud tops and jeans. They opened with “Boogie Wonderland” and the night of disco had officially begun. All of the band members were multi-talented as they moved from playing one instrument to another. Only the drummer and the horn section were stationery, and even the horn section had some sweet dance steps to keep up with the rest.

Everyone was moving and dancing throughout the show; the crowd went nuts! It was disco-tastic! I had a devout fan sitting next to me and asked how familiar I was with the music. I realized throughout the show that EWF played all those funky disco classics that we’ve danced to, that we all know but can never remember who played it.

Ladies were going crazy but I couldn’t stop watching the bass player. His outfit alone was eye-catching but he must have channeled Rick James because his stage presence was this hypnotically, manic, funky attitude that had everyone grooving right along with him. The band had a lot of fun on stage. Their chemistry was amazing.

They played all of their greatest hits like “September,” “Let’s Groove,” “Sing A Song,” “Fantasy,” and “Shining Star.” One song kind of blended into another in what turned out to be a Disco Jam Session. At one point water was poured on the drums to make a splash as the two lead singers played percussion solos.

There were various degrees of fan-hood and ages throughout the seats of Ruth Eckerd Hall. The die-hard fan next to me explained that their original lead wasn’t with them so it just wasn’t the same. He admitted that they were putting on a great show but in so many ways it just wasn’t the same as his first experience with them in the 70’s. I overheard another fan commenting on a friend bringing her daughter. She said, “She knows one song,” and the other gentleman commented, “I know about 5.” It was shortly after this that my concert neighbor commented that everyone should be up dancing and singing along, no one should be sitting!

They took a break about an hour in to let fans refill on drinks and for them to change clothes and dry off. The bass player came back with fringed jeans complete with a USA flag and symbol on each leg, and the leads came back with more loud, sparkly shirts and suit jackets. They did band-member introductions and started a set of what they referred to as “Baby-making numbers,” which consisted of slow songs like “After the Love is Gone” and tunes sweet enough to sing you to sleep.

The lead hit some high notes that could shatter glass and wowed the crowd. You could hear the passion in the piercing notes that even Mariah Carey and Celine Dion couldn’t hit. The second part of the set kept the crowd going and they ate it all up. The played for over two hours and then came back to adorn their devout fans with an encore.

Earth, Wind, and Fire are no doubt great performers, but their music and stage presence is definitely something unbeknownst to my generation! Tuesday night was the definition of a blast from the past, and their true fans fell in love with them even more! EWF may be a man short, but they are definitely not lacking anything when it comes to their performance, and their fans would most certainly agree. I think they all left Ruth Eckerd Hall with disco-fever, because I sure did!