Pop and Jazz Reviews : Gladys Knight Warms in Anaheim Spotlight

Most likely you’ll see the Angels win a World Series before you see another pop star named Gladys come along.

It’s a name of the hearth, not the spotlight. But the genius of Gladys Knight’s show Friday night at the Celebrity Theatre in Anaheim was her ability to dominate the spotlight while exuding an embracing, homey warmth that made the 2,500-seat theater in the round seem like a kitchen or a living room.

Knight was operating with no Pips (she’s a solo act these days, while her sidekick trio takes a break from performing), and her band and backup singers were confined to a stage-side pit. But, after she had jokingly dubbed her bare-bones production “Gladys Knight: A Mic and a Light,” the singer had no trouble carrying the show on her own.

Her glittering white gown and silver high heels might have been designed for the spotlight, and so was some of her material, including such pop-diva ballads as “Wind Beneath My Wings.” But Knight herself seemed less a diva than an earthy product of some vibrant Gospel church. Her show contained plenty of pure-soul gems to go with soul-inflected redemptions of middle-of-the-road material.

At the heart of Knight’s 90-minute set was a winning examination of love’s pitfalls and possibilities, both in plaintive ballads like “Waiting on You” and “Superwoman,” from her current “Good Woman” album, and in the show’s blazing highlight, “On and On.”

Most of her signature hits were folded into a long medley, usually a bad idea, but executed this time with energy and momentum. But, having expended her hits, Knight came up short as an otherwise engaging evening drifted at the end.