No tears, lots of laughs at Righteous Bros. Tucson farewell

Farewells can get kinda messy.

There’s tears to be shed, a lot of “oh, please, don’t go’s” uttered and reciprocated.

And then there’s Bill Medley’s farewell.

No sloppy tears, but lots of laughs when he and Bucky Heard brought the Righteous Brothers “’Lovin’ Feelin’ Farewell Tour” to Fox Tucson Theatre Sunday night.

Medley teased the audience —”Not doing that song,” he said of “Unchained Melody” — and cracked a few jokes aimed at longtime Righteous Bro. Heard — “You got a standing ovation,” he commended his younger partner, before dropping the punchline, “but they were all leaving.”

He saved the funniest jokes for himself, including telling Heard he was slipping backstage to take a nap when Heard soloed on a cover of Roy Orbison’s “Crying.”

He’s 84, Medley informed the crowd, many of whom looked to be a decade or so behind him.

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“I’m gonna be 85 in September,” he said then did a ba-da-dump two-step as the audience applauded.

The applause was not so much for the pending milestone birthday as a show of appreciation that after more than 60 years of performing, the man with one of the most recognizable bass baritones in popular music was still entertaining them.

Age has added a few rough spots to Medley’s once warm and resonating tone. He struggled a bit Sunday night to reach the higher ends of his deep register on “Little Latin Lupe Lu” and “Unchained Melody,” dedicated to his late partner Bobby Hatfield. When he joined his daughter McKenna Medley for “(I’ve Had) The Time of My Life,” his voice faded early on as he was catching a second wind late in the 90-minute performance.

The thing is with farewells, fans who’ve stuck by an artist through decades and generations aren’t looking for perfection. They didn’t come Sunday expecting to see the 20-something version of Medley belting out those great 1960s-70s hits — “Hold On I’m Comin’,” “Little Latin Lupe,” “Rock and Roll Heaven,” “Unchained Melody,” “My Babe” and the show-closing “You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feeling.”

They came to recapture a moment when, as Medley told them, that music was called “ass-kicking rock and roll.”

“Today, they call it elevator music,” he joked, and the audience laughed as if they knew the joke was partly on them.

Other highlights of Sunday’s concert included the full band — Medley, Heard, six musicians and two backup singers — performing the finger-snapping a cappella gospel “In That Great Gettin’ Up Mornin’ “ and a moving tribute to veterans in the audience with “Bridge Over Troubled Water/Lean On Me,” backdropped with a series of black-and-white wartime images flashing on a giant screen.