At 8:42 pm on Nov. 21, 42 minutes after the concert was scheduled to start, the Joe Louis Arena’s overhead lights turned off, leaving the stage lights and the small flashlights of the ushers as the only lights in the stadium. Stevie Wonder walked onstage, and was met with uproarious applause.

Stevland Hardaway Morris began his career at age 11 as a Motown artist. He was a musical prodigy, who went by the stage name “Little Stevie Wonder.” As Morris got older, he separated from Motown and became simply “Stevie Wonder.” He wrote major hits like “Superstition,” “Isn’t She Lovely” and “You Are the Sunshine of My Life.” To date, he has had ten number-one hits on the U.S. pop charts, and has won 25 Grammy Awards.

Wonder’s concert on Nov. 21 was the second-to-last concert in his Songs in the Key of Life tour. The tour lasted for over a year, beginning on Nov. 6, 2014 and ending on Nov. 24, 2015. It included 43 concerts featuring songs from Wonder’s 1976 album “Songs in the Key of Life.”

Wonder began his performance by talking about his beliefs on violence and terrorism. “I am brokenhearted about what is going on in this world,” he said. “Whether it be the killing of people in Paris, the killing of people in any part of Africa, the killing of people in any of the cities where there are killings of young people by other young people, I see all of them as terrorists, and we must change our world.”

The songs were played (with a few exceptions) in the same order as on the album.

The first song on the album, “Love’s in Need of Love Today,” proved an enthusiastic opener, and the trinity of “Contusion,” “Sir Duke” and “I Wish” got the crowd roaring. “Knocks Me Off My Feet,” gave the audience a chance to get involved; Wonder sang “I don’t want to bore you with this,” and the crowd responded “but I love you, I love you, I love you.”

With the band still playing the chorus in the background, Wonder shared more of his views on society. “I think that we’ve got to have more communication between one another,” he said. “What happened to having dinner together, having breakfast together?”

He also shared his views on the current education system, saying, “How can you expect for a young person to express themselves in a creative way if you don’t give them the tools to do it? You should get with your politicians—locally, and throughout the state and throughout the country—and say that we want arts back in school again.”

He ended the song by having the orchestra play a never-before-recorded string part, while the men and women in the audience traded off singing the melody.

After a brief improvisational interlude, Wonder gave his backup singers a chance to shine; there were six of them, and each one sang a short song or duet. Wonder accompanied several of them on piano, and others were accompanied by the orchestra. Wonder clearly had no problem (and even enjoyed) temporarily giving up the spotlight.  After they sang, he did a solo version of “Overjoyed” and “I Just Called to Say I Love You,” and then returned to the order of the album.  

When he sang the beginning of “Summer Soft,” he began to cough. He said, “Let me start that again because of my throat,” and he started the song over.

After “Ordinary Pain,” he left the stage and took a short intermission.

Wonder started the second set with a soulful rendition of “Isn’t She Lovely,” a song about his daughter Aisha. He talked about it briefly beforehand, saying that he had written the song before Aisha was born, and that he had somehow intuitively known that his child would be a girl.                                                        

He played “Joy Inside My Tears” next, weeping at the end of it. While very touching, the crying was likely planned, because he had cried at exactly the same point when he played in Detroit the year before.

The album finished, but the concert was not over. Wonder played “Star Spangled Banner,” and then began to play covers of Detroit hits. Calling himself “DJ Tick-Tick-Boom,” he played through various Motown songs, such as “Dancing in the Street,” “My Girl,” “Ain’t Too Proud to Beg” and “Respect” (for Aretha Franklin, who was sitting in the audience). He moved on to non-Motown songs like “Uptown Funk” and “Ain’t No Stoppin’ Us Now”.

The concert closed with a medley of Wonder’s own hits. First came “You Are the Sunshine of My Life,” followed by “Signed, Sealed, Delivered I’m Yours.” “Signed, Sealed, Delivered I’m Yours” morphed into “Living for the City,” and “Living for the City” morphed into “Higher Ground.” When Wonder came in with the beginning of “Superstition,” the audience cheered for several seconds straight, and by the time the five-and-a-half-minute song was over, the entire audience was on its feet and dancing. It was 12:23, but the crowd seemed anything but tired; even after four hours, the environment in the arena was excited and energetic, a true testament to the passion and skill of one of the world’s greatest-ever musicians.