I went to see Barry Manilow in concert last night. Oh. My. God. He is so great! I had an expectation level that his performance would be good, but he blew me away. At 67 his voice is as powerful and mesmerizing as it's always been. He doesn't strain to hit the high notes or hold the long, dramatic notes at the end of his songs. His performance was first class from start to finish.
I was a little panicky at the beginning of the show. After opening with It's a Miracle (great show opener, by the way), he sang a medley (first verse and one chorus) of a few of his bigger songs. I was worried that he wasn't going to sing the full version of my favorite song of his, Weekend in New England. Then I really went into a panic when I realized that he might not sing it at all! The guy's got 40 years of songs behind him; I don't know what he's going to choose to sing. But in the middle of the concert I heard the first five notes of the song and I got very giddy knowing that I was actually going to hear him perform this song live! Then he starting singing and my heart instantly began to melt. I couldn't even sing along to all the words because I was getting choked up. (Yes, I'm a geek, but you guys already knew that.)
He also sang Mandy and Copacabana, of course, as well as many, many other hits. He sprinkled in a lot of stories about his life, which filled in the background of his stunning career. He had a very large band, four back-up singers, and a few moving parts on his stage. He was very interactive with the audience the entire night. It was obvious that that his fans love him and he loves his fans.
The highlight of the night came somewhat early in the show when he brought one of his fans on stage to dance with him as he sang Glen Miller's theme song, Moonlight Serenade. What a lucky lady! But my favorite part of the show (aside from him singing my favorite song) was the people sitting around us. I nicknamed the women sitting in the row behind us The Barry Manilow Fan Club, and some of them actually were members of his official club. Their excitement was a lot of fun to listen to during the concert and they were very nice to talk with before it started. The couple I was sitting next to were very nice, too. The guy was SO into the music, that several times during the night he made gestures with his hand as if conducting the music during the grand crescendos of a few of Barry's songs. I find that concerts are much more enjoyable when the people around you are not only listening to the music, but feeling it as well. It just makes the atmosphere of the concert that much more enjoyable. [As a side note, when I went to see The Police, the guys standing next to me talked during the whole concert. I don't know why they spent money to go to that concert when they could have just went to bar if all they wanted to do was talk and drink beer. It totally bummed me out.]
Barry Manilow's concert was so inspiring to me that I actually started playing the piano again today. I have a big book of sheet music to a lot of his songs that I never learned how to play when I was taking lessons. I introduced the idea to my teacher and showed him the book, but he clearly wasn't interested in hearing me hack away at Barry Manilow songs, so I never attempted it. I remembered today that I had it and cracked it open. I'm muddling through the intro to Mandy. I know I'll never sound even close to the original version, but I never wanted to play for anyone but myself, anyway. I'm thankful that Barry's performance last night inspired me to want to learn to play a new song after all but ignoring the piano for over a year.
Thank you, Mr. Manilow.
