Dionne Warwick - The Lowry Theatre - 17/02/08 by James Ellaby

In an entertainment industry often obsessed with youth, it's very notable that most of the major draws on the live circuit are actually older artists like The Rolling Stones, Genesis, The Police and people like that. There aren't that many classic soul singers around who are still touring, so it's privilege to get to see someone like Dionne Warwick, even if her days as a vital, chart-bothering, award-winning artist are long behind her. She may not be young, but that doesn't mean that she isn't relevant or that seeing her perform would just be a nostalgic cash-in.

Of course, there can't help but be a sense of nostalgia, because the audience are mostly of an age to remember Warwick's heyday in the 60s, but does that really mean that there's no value to it? Remember, in 45 years' time, the youth of today could be packing into somewhere like The Lowry Theatre to listen to veterans like Adele or Amy Winehouse perform all the hits. Dionne Warwick might not have had a major hit in a very long time, but form is temporary, class is permanent and she is a very classy performer.

However, despite all that I've said so far, age has to be a concern when going to see someone like her, and when she shuffled very slowly towards the centre of the stage at the start of the show, there must have been more than a few gasps of horror somewhere underneath the general applause and cheering, as she looked every bit her 67 years and then some. She quickly explained that she was having medical issues with her foot/leg and jokingly apologises that she couldn't perform all the pirouettes and somersaults that she had planned to do for her big entrance.

And so begins a theme for the night, a lot of talking and a lot of jokes. The show is called My Music and Me and sees Warwick presented a biographical evening with herself as the subject, and it goes in a chronological order from her earliest days onwards and she intersperses all of her hits with amusing anecdotes about her life and career. A lot of fans will probably know all of the history, but she tells it all with wit and charm, and there's plenty of humour involved, particularly when she discusses all the times when fate didn't exactly smile on her in terms of other people (Cilla!) having hits over here with songs that she had recorded first in America.

Of course, Burt Bacharach and Hal David feature strongly in the show, having written most of her hits after giving her a first break in the business singing on their demo tracks. This means that the show quickly moves on from her early gospel singing with her sister Dee Dee to some of the best pop songs of the 60s, many of which she recorded versions that were sent to record companies before becoming hits for other people. Of course, she had plenty of her own, and timeless songs like Walk On By, Do You Know The Way To San Jose, Don't Make Over and I Say a Little Prayer are all part of the show.

It's no good having all these hits to perform though if it doesn't sound good, and at first it is a little alarming that the band has not one but two synthesizers up on stage, but these are used pretty well to provide some of the classic Bacharach orchestration, and the music is generally very good. As for Warwick, while her voice may not quite be what it was, she's still a great singer and gives an excellent performance throughout, never more so than on the beautiful anti-war track The Windows Of The World, where the band are almost silent and her voice is stunning. At the end she takes a moment to compose herself and wipe away some tears, explaining that it is a song that means a lot to her. Whether this was just part of the show or not, it summed up a great night with a great performer.