Tina Turner

Sometimes it seems that what is being celebrated about Tina Turner is her sixtysomething age rather than her music. Or the fact that she has survived an abusive marriage and looks so good, for a granny. And one must ask would the same reductive criteria be applied to the likes of Turner's support acts at the RDS on Tuesday night. Namely, John Fogarty and Lionel Richie. Hardly. Either way, Fogarty delivered all the songs Creedence Clearwater fans craved: Bad Moon Rising, Up Around the Bend, Down on the Corner. Following that fiery, funky start, Richie seemed a little like syrup set to music, crooning tunes like a latter day Andy Williams, yet minus the necessary charm. A "smoothie" without substance.

As for Tina, whatever her age, she was sure brave to perform, at one point, against a collage of video clips of her younger self. Strutting and pumping her way across the stage, she had more energy and panache than her backup singers (who were all nearer 20).

Sadly, Tina Turner's contemporary take on classics such as River Deep, Mountain High revealed that these days she has more energy and poise than soul. Long gone, too, is the craving that once made her interpretation of John Fogarty's Proud Mary so compelling. And so shamelessly sexual.

Even so, when the sell-out crowd sang, en masse, We don't need another Hero, it was obvious that they meant exactly the opposite of what they were saying. A group of five Gardai, standing near the press enclosure, stood mesmerised. It was the same when Tina slid into the crowd pleasers like Try a Little Tenderness, I heard it through the Grapevine and inevitably perhaps, Simply the Best. She's not, in any sense, but no doubt many of the 40,000-plus people singing along with that song, would disagree. Viewed objectively, this Tina Turner gig was strangely cold and unmoving - all exhibition and no emotion.