I just love it when the reviewer can't take the time to get the titles
of all the songs correct.
****
Concert Review: Barry Manilow
ACC - Toronto, June 7, 2008
Live Review: Barry Manilow in T.O.
By JANE STEVENSON -- Sun Media
TORONTO - Manilow mania hit the Air Canada Centre on Saturday night as
Barry Manilow brought his Sin City show - An Evening Of Music And
Passion - to Toronto for the first time since he began his regular gig
of the same name at the Las Vegas Hilton three years ago after
releasing three consecutive hit albums of '50s, '60s and '70s covers.
"I'm Celine Dion," he joked about the Quebec songbird who recently
wrapped up her five-year stint at Ceasars Palace.
"Looks like we made it!" added Manilow, 64, whose perma-tan, streaked,
spikey blond hair and sharp black suit accented by sequined black tie
and fuschia pocket puff and matching lining screamed Vegas showman.
"It's been a long time. (July 4, 1997, at Kingswood as a fan reminded
him). We've got music, you've got the passion!" he said addressing the
"Fan-ilows" who screamed and waved green glow sticks.
The Brooklyn-born Manilow, whose began as jingle writer, theatre
composer and piano player for hire in the '60s before striking big in
the '70s with his first No. 1 hit Mandy, is nothing if not audience
friendly.
And he's still in strong voice.
A mere 15-minutes into his 95-minute show, he took a tiny lift down to
the floor to pluck a female out of the front row and slow dance with
her on stage during Ready To Take A Chance Again.
"That was romantic," he said afterwards. "That's what's know as
foreplay. This is the main course," he said when his piano magically
appeared on stage and he launched into When When I Hold You Again? on
a platform that raised him up and down again as the song reached its
climax.
He also made sure to make eye contact and deployed dramatic arm
gestures during such songs as It's A Miracle, Daybreak, the American
Bandstand Theme and told personal stories like the one about his
grandfather taking him across the bridge from Brooklyn to Times Square
to a "record your own voice booth" during I Made It Through The Rain.
He even played a snippet of that recording and showed a picture of his
grandfather who was the first to stand up when he played Carnagie
Hall, just down the street from that booth, prompting the entire
audience that night to give him a standing ovation.
Aiding Manilow in his quest to entertain was a 10-piece band including
four singers-dancers and an orchestra seated behind him on a tiered
stage dominated by a lit-up backdrop that showed off video, vintage
pictures and footage.
Say what you will about the schmaltz-factor that such ballads as Even
Now, Somewhere Down The Road, Old Friends, Forever And A Day evoke,
but Manilow has written some major heavy hitters over the last four
decades and apparently had famous fans ranging from Frank Sinatra to
Bob Dylan.
Other highlights on Saturday night included Could It Be Magic, which
he explained what a rip-off of a Chopin prelude; Mandy, which was
preceded by a 1975 clip of him performing it on The Midnight Special
and segued to him rising from beneath the floor behind a white piano
in a white blazer; and I Write The Songs that prompted the first real
crowd singalong followed by Copacobana complete with his singer-
dancers dressed as Vegas showgirls and a confetti and streamer
explosion.
Less successful was his tribute to the '60s - he's currently working
on a '80s covers album - that saw him sitting on a stool on an orange
shag carpet beside a lava lamp going through his old record collection
and smoking a "funny cigarette," before breaking into a medley that
included You're Just Too Good To Be True, Where Did Our Love Go, and
What The World Needs Now.
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