Singer Gladys Knight performs at Hard Rock Live. (Howie Grapek / GPO)

“This,” my husband said, as we happily swept out of Gladys Knight’s Valentine’s Day appearance at Hard Rock Live on a cloud of music, memory and the kind of giddiness that makes the not-in-love want to puke, “is maybe the best concert we have ever been to together.”

And this is considering Paul McCartney, U2, Mariah Carey, and a particularly sprightly Frankie Beverly and Maze jam that set out hair on fire. No, my husband was much more impressed with Empress Gladys, who commanded the stage with the power of that miraculously strong voice, a winning smile, down-home stories of love, career and the way things used to be, and a sparkly pantsuit whose shine rivaled the sun. Like, the sun is wearing sunglasses, looking at Gladys and going “Where does she get those marvelous toys?”

This means that I married the right man, because he’s right – on the way to the “Midnight Train To Georgia,” Miss Knight garnered the crowd’s instant goodwill – the standing ovation began before she said a word – by just giving them more and more of what they wanted. More hits. More stories. More signals that their being there meant something to them. An excellent band and group of singers with a sense of humor. An appearance by her brother, “Pip #1″ Bubba Knight and his white suit.

Photos: Gladys Knight at the Hard Rock

If you’ve never seen Gladys Knight interviewed, you might be momentarily startled by the down-to-earth warmth of the speaking voice that goes with that silky, elegant singing voice. She talks like your Southern grandmother around the table, if you indeed had a Southern grandmother, which I sure did. It’s a voice of experience, a voice that smiles, that gives hard-won wisdom without any schmaltz or gumminess. There’s no nonsense. Only love and a bit of fun. More than a bit.

“This song is from 1960-something,” the eternally youthful Knight said, after doing “Every Beat of My Heart,” her 1961 hit with the Pips, playfully swatting away the year as if it made her seem older. Trust us, Gladys, it does not. Nothing could. As she spun through her hits and those of others – She began with a train medley of “People Get Ready” and “Love Train,” and then stopped along some wondrous places, like her silky cover of “The Way We Were,” the jaunty “Love Overboard” and the gut-cutting “Neither One of Us (Wants To Be The First To Say Goodbye),” which is a down sentiment for a Valentine’s Day but still makes you want to sing along. (Singing “It’s sad to think we’re not gonna make it” to your husband is probably not good. But it sounded good.)

The show had two specific highlights which were not necessarily better than the organic Gladys stuff, but were markedly memorable – that appearance by Brother Bubba, which could have been just embarrassingly sentimental cheese but became not only Vaudevillian wordplay between the two Knights but an electricfying performance of Al Green’s “Love and Happiness” and a sweet Gladys/Bubba duet of “Yesterday.”

And there was a “It’s hard out here for a Pip” joke. Had to happen. Don’t hate on it.

The other breathtaking moment was Knight’s inevitable tribute to Whitney Houston, which included both some of Houston’s own songs (“Run to You” and “All The Man I Need”) and the always devastating “A Song For You.” It was a beautifully sung and obviously deeply felt interlude during which Knight spoke of the love that Houston never got during her life on earth that she hopefully was receiving, presumably, with God. No matter what your religious or spiritual bent, the idea that that voice was now singing happily along in some safer place was comforting.

Immediately following the sad stuff, Gladys went into her signature song, which some writer from the Washington Post once referred to as the anthem for co-dependency. Feh, I say. “Midnight Train” isn’t about losing yourself in some other person; it’s about loving someone so completely that you appreciate the sacrifices he’s made to be realistic about his dreams and his life and start over where he began. And you dry your eyes, straighten your hair and say “I’d rather live in his world than live without him in mind,” because that’s what love is – sacrifice. He tried it in L.A. and it didn’t work and now he’s mature enough to move on, and she’s not having drama queen wah-wah time about how he’s leaving. She’s making a choice, and it’s brave and scary and beautiful.

So that’s what Gladys sells, every time she sings that song, and I’m buying it. The end, where the singers are behind her singing “My world, his world, my man, his girl” and her insisting “I’ve got to go, I’ve got to go, I’ve got to go.” It’s my favorite song of all time, because it’s about what love is – something that’s sometimes not convenient, but that, when you are faced with it, you choose not to live without. And that’s how a Gladys Knight show was – Now that I’ve seen her live, I must again.