Four titans in the music industry, who united for the Queens Tour this year, made the first of two stops in New Jersey on Thursday at Prudential Center in Newark.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Queens Tour: 4 Legends. 1 Stage\u201d concert features the extraordinary voices and talents of legendary Grammy Award-winning artists Patti LaBelle, Gladys Knight, Stephanie Mills, and Chaka Khan.<\/p>\n
Knight, a seven-time Grammy-winner, opened the nearly sold-out show at 8 p.m. with the uptempo songs \u201cTaste Of Bitter Love,\u201d followed by \u201cLove Overboard.\u201d<\/p>\n
The 1996 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee, who began her career with her siblings and other family members as Gladys Knight in the Pips, later performed hits, including \u201cBest Thing That Ever Happened To Me,\u201d \u201cIf I Were Your Woman,\u201d and \u201cNeither One of Us (Wants to Be the First to Say Goodbye).\u201d<\/p>\n
Known as the \u201cEmpress of Soul,\u201d Knight, who celebrated her 81st birthday on May 28, closed her set in just under 30 minutes with the Donnie McClurkin gospel hit \u201cStand.\u201d She also performed \u201cThat\u2019s What Friends Are For,\u201d her collaboration with fellow icons Dionne Warwick, Elton John, and Stevie Wonder, before ending with a hit likely inspired by her early career travels, \u201cMidnight Train to Georgia.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Queens Tour<\/p>\n
The youngest and most energetic of the touring legends, Brooklyn-native Stephanie Mills, opened her set with the uptempo \u201cWhat Cha Gonna Do With My Lovin\u2019 \u201d and the mid-tempo \u201c(You\u2019re Puttin\u2019) a Rush on Me.\u201d The Grammy Award-winner also performed \u201cSomething in the Way You Make Me Feel,\u201d and allowed her three male background singers to shine on an extended version of \u201cI Have Learned to Respect the Power of Love.\u201d The powerful vocalist who stands at four feet, nine inches, ended her performance in just over 30 minutes with the uptempo \u201cNever Knew Love Like This Before,\u201d for which she won a Grammy in 1981, and \u201cHome,\u201d perhaps the hit she is best known for from her role as Dorothy in the 1975 Broadway production of \u201cThe Wiz.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Queens Tour<\/p>\n
The eldest tour member, Patti LaBelle \u2014 four days older than Knight \u2014 opened with \u201cSomething Special (Is Gonna Happen Tonight),\u201d then greeted the crowd: \u201cGood evening, Newark. Newark, New Jersey, I love you, I\u2019m happy to be here, and could you give the ladies a big hand, Stephanie, Chaka Khan, and Gladys what?\u201d The audience answered, \u201cKnight!\u201d She briefly introduced her next song before launching into \u201cLove, Need and Want You.\u201d<\/p>\n
Afterward, LaBelle, who began her career with Cindy Birdsong, Nona Hendryx, and Sarah Dash in a group called LaBelle, performed songs including \u201cOn My Own,\u201d joined by one of her male background vocalists, Aaron Marcellus, who performed Michael McDonald\u2019s verse on the Burt Bacharach-written and produced mid-1980s classic duet.<\/p>\n
She then performed hits like \u201cNew Attitude,\u201d \u201cMy Love, Sweet Love\u201d from the 1995 Waiting To Exhale soundtrack, and \u201cSomebody Loves You Baby (You Know Who It Is).<\/p>\n
After a quick wardrobe change, LaBelle returned to the stage in a vibrant purple and green outfit and performed \u201cIf Only You Knew,\u201d followed by \u201cYou Are My Friend,\u201d which she sang as images of late icons Michael Jackson, Prince, Lena Horne and others appeared on a jumbotron behind her. She closed with an extended version of \u201cLady Marmalade,\u201d inviting men from the audience to join her on stage.<\/p>\n
The Queens Tour<\/p>\n
Up next was 10-time Grammy winner Chaka Khan, who closed the show. Khan took the stage after a video featuring Michelle Obama, Prince, and Whitney Houston played, praising her. She then opened her set with \u201cThis Is My Night,\u201d followed by the uptempo \u201cDo You Love What You Feel\u201d and \u201cEverlasting Love.\u201d The Chicago native acknowledged 17-time Grammy-winning artist Alicia Keys, who was in the audience, urged fans to see Keys\u2019 Tony-winning musical \u201cHell\u2019s Kitchen\u201d, and dedicated \u201cWhat Cha\u2019 Gonna Do For Me\u201d to her.<\/p>\n
Khan, nicknamed the Queen of Funk, then performed \u201cSweet Thing,\u201d one of her most popular songs, more recently covered by Mary J. Blige on her 1992 debut album, also titled \u201cSweet Thing, \u201cThrough the Fire,\u201d \u201cMy Funny Valentine, \u201cTell Me Something Good,\u201d and her popular cover of Prince\u2019s \u201cI Feel For You.\u201d Next, it was the song remade by Whitney Houston on \u201cThe Bodyguard: Original Soundtrack\u201d album, \u201cI\u2019m Every Woman.\u201d Khan briefly exited, then returned for an encore, closing her hour-long set with \u201cAin\u2019t Nobody.\u201d<\/p>\n
New Jerseyans can see the Queens Tour on Saturday at 8 p.m. at Boardwalk Hall in Atlantic City. The tour, which began in Las Vegas in May, also visits Washington, D.C., on Friday before ending on Sunday at Cleveland\u2019s Rocket Arena.<\/p>\n
More Stories From Mosaic<\/h2>\n
Read the original article on NJ.com<\/a>. Add NJ.com<\/a> as a Preferred Source by clicking here<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.yahoo.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Four titans in the music industry, who united for the Queens Tour this year, made the first of two stops in New Jersey on Thursday at Prudential Center in Newark. \u201cThe Queens Tour: 4 Legends. 1 Stage\u201d concert features the extraordinary voices and talents of legendary Grammy Award-winning artists Patti LaBelle, Gladys Knight, Stephanie Mills, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2060014,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25173],"tags":[364670,329593,343043,23360,345933,359392,344962,374682,384010],"class_list":["post-2060013","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-artists","tag-chaka-khan","tag-gladys-knight","tag-grammy-award-winning","tag-new-jersey","tag-newark","tag-patti-labelle","tag-prudential-center","tag-stephanie-mills","tag-the-queens-tour"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/Queens-Tour-brings-Patti-LaBelle-and-Gladys-Knight-to-NJ.jpeg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2060013","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2060013"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2060013\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2060014"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2060013"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2060013"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2060013"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}