Tina Turner Sheffield: Memories of how late superstar's very last live show took place at Utilita Arena
It seems beyond belief that the very last audience music legend Tina Turner ever performed to was right here in Sheffield.
But it’s true. When the global superstar – who last night sadly passed away, aged 83 – filled the Sheffield Utilita Arena with her iconic voice in May 2009, it’s possible not even she knew then how it would be the last live concert of her incredible career.
The trailblazing musician died peacefully on May 24 after a long illness in her home in Küsnacht near Zurich, Switzerland.
One of her many friends leading the tributes last night was Sheffield’s own Martyn Ware, of Heaven 17 fame, who helped revitalize her career in 1983 after she broke free from her abusive husband, Ike Turner.
Her and Martyn’s cover of ‘Let’s Stay Together’ helped her explode back on stage for the next 15 years. Her final stage performance of this new era took place in her 70th year in front of a packed Sheffield Arena on May 5, 2009.
In fact, she had been meant to appear in Sheffield two months earlier on the 90-date tour, which took in 12 countries. However, Tina caught a bad case of the flu and was told by doctors to rest for six days, meaning that her concerts in Sheffield and at the O2 Arena in London had to be postponed.
The rescheduled Sheffield show then became the last on the tour – and, as time would tell, her last show ever.
In her 2018 autobiography My Love Story, Tina recalled: “After working hard for so many years, I was ready to stop.
"This was the moment to do it because I wanted to finish with my fans remembering me at my best. I didn’t want them to come to a show in a year, or two years, and think Oh, she used to be good.
"There is a wise expression, Leave the party before it’s over.”
Her other appearances in Sheffield include four shows at Don Valley Stadium in July and November 1996 on the Wildest Dreams tour, as well as the same venue on July 13, 2000. She performed at Sheffield City Hall in February 1984 and as Ike & Tina Turner at the King Mojo Club back in October 1966.