It is impossible to pick a single moment that defined rich, soulful set at the on Thursday, part of the band’s first tour in a decade.
One could make comparisons between singer Sade Adu’s heartache- soaked lyrics and the similarly downcast, blighted music of fellow Brits Portishead. Both revel in gorgeously icy synth washes and the occasional sharp snare roll, although Sade is clearly from a different — and much warmer — time and place.
Adu’s vocals are all about theatricality and restraint, inimitable but clearly a product of the 52-year-old’s early diet of American R&B, soul and jazz. Thursday night, her band delivered the spotless slow-mo jams that her sultry persona demands and deserves.
Coming off the heels of last year’s “Soldier of Love” and the career- spanning “Ultimate Collection,” the group was in fine shape, even if the sound suffered a bit at the outset.
Smoky red lights heralded opener “Soldier of Love,” the eight-piece group silhouetted and near-motionless behind the singer on the stage. Adu’s voice was lost in the bass- heavy din, but the house engineers quickly recovered.
“Your Love Is King” in the hands of a lesser artist would have sounded prosaic and weak. But the nuances made it count. Ripping sax solos, hair-whipping neck turns and dance moves with the backup singers drove the point home.
As a canvas and a conduit, a preacher and a mourner, Sade’s music is unmatched. One-dimensional histrionics are fine for pop, but this was something else entirely. This was about gauzy curtains and costume changes (see the relatively aggressive late-set number “Sweetest Taboo”). Tasteful art-house video projections were all part of the act, as was the lack of stage banter.
“Smooth Operator,” from Sade’s 1984 debut “Diamond Life,” is easily the band’s best-known song. It reared its head early in Thursday’s set, much to the delight of the rapt (if not exactly capacity) audience. It’s the most pleasant kind of smoke and mirrors, a restrained and mannered tune that implies more than it delivers, always leaving the listener wanting more.
Opener John Legend’s set vacillated between tender ballads and upbeat songs, such as hit closer “Green Light,” but the devoted crowd was clearly there to see Sade. This night was about mystery, not pop.
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John Wenzel is an executive editor of and an award-winning A&E reporter for The Denver Post. He is the author of (Speck Press/Fulcrum) and maintains a of completely random song titles and band names.
John Leyba is a Denver Post photojournalist and regular contributor to Reverb.
