SOUTHAVEN, Miss. -- Bobby Brown, on stage near Memphis Saturday night, had only just heard that Whitney Houston, his wife of 15 years, had died.
"It was very, very overwhelming... surreal," said Sherrish Hollomon, who was at the concert, which was a reunion of New Edition.
And she told 11Alive's Jon Shirek via Skype on Sunday that everyone in the packed house found out from their cell phones just before the concert began that Houston had died.
And she said everyone was surprised that Brown went ahead with the show.
Many in the audience were in tears as Brown nearly broke down.
"First of all, I want to tell you that I love you all," he told fans gathered at the nearly sold-out 7,500-seat venue in northern Mississippi. "Second, I would love to say, 'I love you, Whitney.' The hardest thing for me to do is to come on this stage."
Brown took the stage as part of the New Edition reunion tour at the Landers Center in Southaven, close to Memphis, Tenn. He said he decided to go on with the performance because fans had shown their loyalty to the group New Edition for more than 25 years. He performed about 10 songs over more than an hour -- "My Prerogative" and "Mr. Telephone Man" among them -- before he appeared shaken on stage.
"He was visibly upset by everything," said Hollomon. "Towards the end, Bobby just kind of just threw his hand up to us like he sort of said, you know, goodbye."
He walked off the stage near the end of the concert. And he collapsed.
"When he was coming down those stairs I thought he was going to slip and fall," said the show's MC, Stan Bell of Memphis, "because he had given every iota, every nerve, every sinew, every ounce of strength that he had, to finish that show.... He just collapsed. As I was going back there, right when he finished, Bobby was, like, out on the ground... You could see tears throughout the crowd."
In Atlanta, during a special Sunday tribute show on Radio Station V-103, callers spoke of how Whitney Houston's majestic voice still inspires, and how they've been worried for her, and grateful for her.
"You always had a concern for Whitney Houston," said V-103's Frank Ski, "but you never thought that you would all of a sudden get a call that she passed. It hurt."
From Atlanta, to Memphis, to Los Angeles, and across the world -- sadness, and awe:
"That voice!" said Gladys Knight. "Oh my God. No one has every come close to that voice."
"The voice," said Diana Ross. "You know, her voice. We're very sad."
(The Associated Press contributed to this report.)