Your Guide to Live Music in Upstate New York

On This Day in Upstate Music

Stevie Wonder at Onondaga War Memorial Auditorium — September 19, 1986

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Stevie Wonder brought his commercial and creative peak to Syracuse on the In Square Circle tour, the trek behind his 1985 album that had already spun off “Part-Time Lover” and “Overjoyed” into radio staples. The Onondaga County War Memorial crowd got a career-spanning set that reached back through “Superstition” and “Higher Ground” and forward into pointed, socially conscious material like “It’s Wrong (Apartheid),” proof Wonder was still using his stardom to say something. It was a rare full-scale arena stop for Central New York from an artist who by then rarely needed to leave the biggest markets.

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