Saturday, July 12 - GM Place, Vancouver. The final stop on the “A Wonder Summer’s Night” tour, which features the fabulous Stevie Wonder and his 14 piece band and three backup singers, one of whom was his daughter Aisha Morris - more on her later.

The show starts off with Stevie talking about his fond memories of coming to Vancouver with Ray Charles when he was a young boy and how he enjoyed the city. He also took a moment to talk about the late great jazz pianist / composer Oscar Peterson and dedicated this particular show to the legend.

As he sat down at the keys, fans were eagerly anticipating which one of his soulful joints he was going to start the show off with. The wait ended when he went straight into “As If You Read My Mind.” Fans start going crazy and I have to admit that when he hit the chorus, I had chills down my spine. To hear his records a 1,000 times and then to hear him live was amazing for myself. I’m not a religious person, but this was one of those “religious moments.” He kept the vibe going by getting into “Master Blaster (Jammin’)” and then into “Did I Hear You Say You Love Me.” It was clear from then that he was doing his hits off of the 1980s album with the iconic album cover, Hotter Than July. Next off the album was “All I Do,” and the performance was powerful, moving and soulful.

From there he moved on to “Knocks Me Off My Feet,” the quintessential love song. This is a baby making jam for sure. With lines like, “There’s something ‘bout your love that makes me weak and knocks me off my feet,” what girl wouldn’t fall in love with that?

Next, Stevie freestyles it a bit and jumps on the talk box / vocoder which he has been known to do. Think Roger Troutman (or more recently, AJK’s favorite RnB singer Terrycloth-Pain aka T-Pain). After his moment on the talk box, he jumps into “Higher Ground.” This causes an eruption in the crowd as they go crazy. As the song comes to an end, he does a solo on the harmonica, which then ensues in a solo for each of the other 13 members in the band.

Once the solo for the band members is completed, Stevie moves onto “Don’t You Worry ‘Bout a Thing,” “Visions,” the ever popular “Living For The City” and “Golden Lady” before taking a pause and “gettin’ his drinkie drink,” which leads to his witty banter with the crowd about his childhood friends. He had the crowd laughing pretty hard. He also took the time to talk about two upcoming projects that he’s working on at the same time: 1) The Gospel Inspired by Lula and 2) Through the Eyes of Wonder. He sang a new number off of the latter, giving the audience a preview of what to expect on his upcoming project.

As he finished the song, he called his daughter Aisha up to his side and introduced her to the crowd and had her sing a song for the audience. As she stood by her father, I had images of what it would’ve been like for another father and daughter tandem to perform together, Nat King Cole and Natalie Cole. Ironically, the song Aisha sang was an old Nat King Cole classic, “I’m Gonna Laugh You Out Of My Life.” Beautiful voice and beautiful performance. After her song, Stevie sings “Isn’t She Lovely,” which was written for her, and it was definitely a touching moment to see how much a father can adore his daughter.

Stevie continued his set with “Ribbon in the Sky” and “Overjoyed,” which I have to admit was sung so beautifully that I almost had tears. Then, “My Cherie Amour” came on and that almost put me over, and I’m a full-grown ass man. It’s just his voice that’s so touching and beautiful. “Signed, Sealed, Delivered I’m yours,” “For Once In My Life,” “I Wish” and “Superstition” round out his whole set.

I’ve always been a Stevie Wonder fan and one of my favorite records as a kid, so my dad tells me, is Stevie’s  Hotter Than July. He said that whenever I made a ruckus or was temperamental, he would put this record on to try and soothe me. Soothing it is indeed as it’s still one of my favorite records to this day and I have to say feel quite touched that I had a chance to see this legend perform live in front of my eyes. Definite props to LiveNation.com for bringing in such a spectacular act.