SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. — For decades people all over the world have been listening to and enjoying John Legend’s music.
Earlier this week, 25,000 people gathered as he performed his first-ever show at the Saratoga Performing Arts Center with the Philadelphia Orchestra. “An Evening With John Legend,” conducted by Anthony Parnther who was also making his SPAC debut, gave audiences an inside look at the performer from his humble beginnings in Springfield, Ohio before taking on the moniker “John Legend,” his real name being John Roger Stephens, to where he is now as a critically acclaimed, multi-platinum singer-songwriter, record producer and actor, among other things. “I’m going to take you back in time with me,” Legend told the sold-out crowd at the beginning of the performance.
“Sing you the songs and tell you the stories that make me who I am.” And from the moment Legend stepped out on the stage the crowd was hanging on his every word. No matter if he was seated at the piano or up on his feet engaging with the crowd, he guided the show expertly, crafting the narrative of his life with personal anecdotes and songs from multiple eras of his life.
“It is a bit of a retrospective of his life and career,” Parnther told the Saratogian before the performance. “You get to know him and his story at a profoundly deep level. You get to understand where he came from and how he got to where he is now.
(You) get to learn about him, his life, his career and his f.