Superstition (Live) – Stevie Wonder

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Superstition (Live) – Stevie Wonder


I got a new job working for a high-end hi-fi speaker company, a month in they sent me along to attend a trade show at a hotel in Bristol. It was a very strange set up, each company demonstrating their products was allocated one of the bedrooms, all the furniture was removed and in it’s place they setup their hi-fi equipment to play songs to the attending audiophiles. There were all levels, sizes, shapes and sounds of every thing you could associate with hi-fi and surround sound systems. Each room competing in volume and content trying to capture as many people as possible. The larger companies had use of the function rooms around the hotel foray, the company I was there with were the only ones displaying on the tenth floor in a slightly bigger suite. They took along £20,000 worth of their top of the range speakers in a surround sound system, two large floor standers, two rear stand mounted, a centre channel and a huge subwoofer, all of which were positioned around a huge TV and Blu-ray player.
They had created a show-reel of scenes from big movies and a selection of live musical performances to show the system off in all it’s glory. Stevie Wonder’s 'Superstition' was one of the chosen songs, it certainly made these speakers work and quality of the sound swirling round the room was amazing. I was there as the door keeper only allowing a certain amount of attendees in at once, the show was repeated every half hour or so, over the period of the day I got to know the movie scenes and songs pretty well. The only clip that never got boring was this song, it totally got me each time the organ started up and the driving drum beat made me want to dance.
Stevie Wonder is a magician when it comes to crafting a good song, he’s had many hits and appeared on so many others. He plays so many different instruments, the guy is just musical. The subject matter is really cool as well, exploring all the things people have superstitions about, something everyone can relate to. He collaborated with Jeff Beck on this one, he always seems to keep good company.
I learnt a new respect for sound quality that day and also a deep appreciation of how to add a groove to a song to make it more powerful, the live performance here just adds to the whole thing with the reaction of the crowd. The band look like they are having a total blast.
The funny thing was after a long day at the show, I traveled the four hours back from Bristol to my home in Essex by train and went straight to our local pub to meet my family. Being a Saturday night they had a pub band playing, I arrived late but three songs after I got there the band tore into this tune. By then I knew ever syllable, and to be fair to them they made a good attempt at the groove. I made my family laugh relaying the story of the day and I still love this song.

Favourite lyric : Very superstitious / Writing's on the wall


Location: Rayleigh, UK

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