St. Louis CITY SC is turning its August 22 home match against the Houston Dynamo into a full-blown tribute to Tina Turner, complete with a free block party outside Energizer Park, a gold-flecked jersey inspired by her stage costumes, and a set of teenage musicians trained specifically to play her catalog. The club calls it Tina Turner Night presented by SeatGeek, and it kicks off at 7:30 p.m. local time after gates open at 6 p.m.
The night builds on a campaign the club launched back in February, when St. Louis CITY SC and adidas unveiled what they're calling the Tina Kit — a secondary jersey with gold-textured detailing meant to echo Turner's signature fringe dresses and gold records, according to St. Louis CITY SC. City players will wear the kit on the pitch Saturday, and the club and adidas describe it as the first soccer kit collaboration adidas has done with a female musical artist, as reported by MLSSoccer.com. Proceeds from Tina Kit sales help fund a Turner-focused music curriculum at a local youth arts organization, tying the jersey deal directly to what happens on the field Saturday.
“Tina Turner deserves an iconic celebration,” club executive Matt Sebek said, adding that CITY SC will use the night to share Turner's music and story at Energizer Park, the stadium that took on that name in January 2025 under a naming-rights deal with Energizer Holdings after previously operating as CITYPARK, as Hoodline previously reported.
A Free Block Party Rooted in Turner's St. Louis Story
The celebration starts well before kickoff. CITY SC's free block party at Lou Fusz Plaza begins at 4:30 p.m. with local food and drink, family-friendly games, and live DJ entertainment from Stazi. Students from the Center of Creative Arts, or COCA, are scheduled to perform a medley of Turner's greatest hits, including Proud Mary and The Best, starting at 5:30 p.m., before a St. Louis Symphony Orchestra mini tribute concert takes the same stage at 6 p.m. featuring vocalists Kennedy Holmes and Tamika Lawrence.
The COCA students performing at the block party aren't just fans covering Turner's songbook — they're enrolled in a Turner-focused curriculum led by Dr. Philip A. Woodmore, who has said the partnership highlights the arts organization's artistry. COCA operates out of University City and, per Explore St. Louis, ranks as the fourth-largest multidisciplinary community arts organization in the country, serving more than 50,000 students and audience members across the region each year. Woodmore was also recognized as an Enterprise Exceptional Neighbor as part of the tribute.
Inside the stadium, Kennedy Holmes will lead the national anthem and perform a set of Turner's greatest hits — a return engagement for the singer, who has previously performed the anthem at a past CITY match. Holmes first drew national attention in 2018 at age 13, when she earned a four-chair turn during blind auditions and went on to finish fourth on Season 15 of NBC's The Voice, according to KSDK. Before that competition, she was a youth performer at St. Louis's The Muny.
From Powell Hall to Apple Music
Saturday's matchday events are the latest step in a partnership between CITY SC and the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra that began earlier this year with a full concert. On February 15, the two organizations co-presented Eternal: A Tribute to Tina Turner at Powell Hall, featuring guest performances from Alabama Shakes frontwoman and Grammy winner Brittany Howard alongside Holmes, with SLSO members and conductor Stéphane Denève performing in the Tina Kit itself, per the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra.
That concert was recorded, and CITY SC and the SLSO have since released Eternal: A Tribute to Tina Turner on Apple TV, with tracks also available on Apple Music. Guest conductor Anthony Parnther, who co-led the recordings with Denève, brings Hollywood credibility to the project — his scoring credits include Tenet, Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, and Oppenheimer, according to the Lyric Opera of Chicago. Parnther also serves as music director for the San Bernardino Symphony Orchestra. Powell Hall itself reopened in September 2025 after a $140 million, two-year renovation that added the 64,000-square-foot Jack C. Taylor Music Center to the 1925 concert hall, KSDK reported at the time.
Turner's Roots in St. Louis Nightlife and Recording History
The tribute leans heavily on Turner's actual history in the region. Born Anna Mae Bullock, Turner moved to St. Louis as a teenager in the 1950s and graduated in 1958 from Charles Sumner High School, the oldest Black high school west of the Mississippi River. She performed in clubs across the region, including Club Imperial in North St. Louis and Club Manhattan in East St. Louis, developing the stage skills that led her to join Ike Turner's Kings of Rhythm, according to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.
Turner's first studio recording happened not far away, in Ike Turner's basement studio in East St. Louis, where she sang under the name Little Ann on the track Boxtop in 1958. The song was released by St. Louis radio DJ Mitchell “Gabriel” Hearns and featured guitar work from local blues musician Bennie Smith, per KSDK. In November 2024, community leaders and the nonprofit 4theVille unveiled a two-story mural of Turner at 4157 Dr. Martin Luther King Drive in The Ville neighborhood, near her former high school, a project supported in part by public arts grants from the St. Louis Regional Arts Commission.
Giveaways and Tickets
Fans attending Saturday's match will receive an exclusive Tina-centric matchday giveaway, and the first 10,000 fans through the gates get a limited-edition Tina Turner pin set presented by SeatGeek. Tickets for CITY SC's match against the Houston Dynamo are available at stlcitysc.com.
The tribute arrives amid a busier-than-usual year at Energizer Park, which has hosted everything from World Cup-adjacent watch parties to a USMNT match under new head coach Mauricio Pochettino, and weathered a gunfire scare near the venue that halted a CITY2 match in June, as Hoodline has reported. Saturday's celebration is a markedly different kind of event — one built around a hometown legend whose voice first rang out in a basement studio a few miles from where thousands of fans will gather this weekend.
