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Stevie Wonder Marks 50 Years of Songs in the Key of Life

Stevie Wonder brought Songs in the Key of Life back to the stage at London's O2 Arena on 5 November 2026, marking half a century since the album's 1976 release on its anniversary tour. Backed by a 25-piece band, the 76-year-old delivered a long, multi-set evening devoted to one of pop's landmark double LPs.

Even before he appeared, his voice filled the darkened venue, inviting the audience to shut their eyes and take in the world through "the eyes of our ears." Settling behind his keyboards, he opened with Love's in Need of Love Today. His son Mandla Morris came out to duet on Have a Talk With God, and a live string section then joined for Village Ghetto Land, laying baroque-style chamber lines under his social commentary.

The pace picked up as Contusion moved into Sir Duke, the five-piece horn section firing bright brass lines that brought the crowd to its feet. That energy ran on through the bassline of I Wish before he eased off with Knocks Me Off My Feet.

Between songs he kept things relaxed, trying on a Cockney accent, joking about recent US election results and musing on a divided world. The universe, he suggested, runs in natural alignment while humanity stays out of step, and he urged the room toward unity.

The first set moved through Pastime Paradise, Summer Soft and Ordinary Pain, slipping in instrumental snippets of the James Bond theme and Michael Jackson's Billie Jean before closing with Saturn and Ebony Eyes.

In the second set he played chromatic harmonica on Isn't She Lovely and performed Joy Inside My Tears, Black Man and Ngiculela – Es Una Historia – I Am Singing. Harpist Brandee Younger joined him for If It's Magic, and he dedicated As to his late mother before ending the main set with Another Star.

For the finale, his daughter Zaiah Morris took lead vocals on John Lennon's Imagine, after which Stevie closed the night with a thunderous Superstition, stretching its famous Clavinet riff into an extended horn jam before leaving the stage to a standing ovation.

Photo: Music-News
Source: Muzland
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