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Paris Las Vegas - October 22, 2010(View photo gallery here)
BB-31
Some Kind of Friend was our rock song of the night. Barry does that so well. The sunglasses are the crowning touch. He referred to them as his "sexy glasses". Barry sang the song with a lot of feeling - he really put emphasis on the lyrics. I swear, you could almost "see" the words, he was singing them with so much force. There was a ton of attitude in this performance. That closing pose with the mic stand was awesome - a classic rock pose. Wish I had taken a photo of it. Barry made the comment about the "sexy glasses" after he had finished the song. Lately, he takes that opportunity between songs to walk to the side of the stage to get a drink of water. As he walked across, he looked at the audience with an expression of mock shock and said something to the effect of "What was that? This guy sings ballads!". Ha! The he said he had to put away his "sexy glasses". At some point (can't remember exactly where), he mentioned rock or rock music, and pointed at himself and said, "Sex, drugs and rock and roll." Then he said, "The only drug I do is Lipitor." The Grandpa Joe segment was nice. There were no stand out songs during the segment - they're always great - just nothing specific about any of the performances that really knocked my socks off in the usual way - you know, awe-inspiring because of the vocals, or heart-wrenching because of the emotion Barry put into the lyrics. But... I Am Your Child rattled me like it's never done before. Now, Barry's performances have gifted me with tons of emotions and feelings over the years (don't go there!) - but not like this. He was singing the song - and granted, for some reason that song seems to be more meaningful to him for the last couple of years - but, I digress. Barry was singing - and then it was like I was having a vision of what my life is going to be like in the next 10-20 years - how everything will change. And it shook me - brought a lump to my throat and tears to my eyes. A really strange reaction, I know. An interesting change of lyrics during This One's For You - well, not really - more of a change in the way Barry sang it. The lyrics are "I hope that you will hear me sing" or "all I can do is hope that you will hear me sing". But for this performance, he just said (softly) "hope that you will hear me sing". So instead of being more like a bold statement of the lyrics (what we've been used to), this sounded more like a postscript - kind of like if you're writing someone a letter or an email, and you're adding a last thought, especially when you're a little sad or a little concerned about the recipient. You know, "hope you're doing okay" or "hope things will be better" - it had that kind of feeling to it. Or kind of like you're expressing a wish. I thought it was interesting change. After Some Kind of Friend, I never saw any sign that Barry might be having trouble with his voice - he must have rocked it right out, because he was shaking the rafters for the rest of the night. I think the strongest song of the night, both emotionally and vocally was Even Now. It wasn't the most passionate performance I've ever seen Barry do. And there were more moments during This One's For You where he was able to inject enough emotion that it carried out to the audience. But this still was the strongest song of the night. The ending was beautiful, very strong. No signs of voice trouble there! Seriously, the Paris is going to have to spring for some reinforcements for the ceiling rafters if Barry keeps this up. The ending was different - no walking backwards and bowing - no dark background, with a lone spotlight shining down - instead, he just walked straight back, all the way to the band. That moment where Barry strikes one of his classic poses, head thrown back, right arm extended, belting out a killer note, with spotlights shining in all directions - that was still in there and looked great. I've never mentioned it before - not sure why. But I just love the "conducting" that Barry has begun doing as they move into the intro music for Even Now. It always gives me chills. Can't explain it - it just does. I don't know how many people caught it, but I almost laughed out loud... During the sock hop segment, when Barry and the backups start cycling through the various dances of the era, Barry said, "Here are some of those stupid dances". BARRY!! Ha! Okay, you know - maybe he's right - they were kind of stupid. But it's so much fun watching him deliberately do them badly. Barry was really funny trying to copy Kye's dance moves last night. And at one point, he jumped over next to the girls and started copying their little shoulder shake move. Do anyone sing during that portion of the show? Ha! Sorry, I'm having too much fun watching Barry's antics to pay attention to the music.
I don't guess I'll ever get over the lighting at these shows. I'm sure some of you wondering if I'm going to the shows to see Barry or the lighting. Obviously, I'm there for Barry - but I don't think he would have spent the time (and probably money) putting this whole thing together if he didn't want us to appreciate it. The lighting is gorgeous. During one song (I think it was LLWMI), the front part of the stage had a purple glow, while the back part had bright red lights - the combination of the two seemed to enclose the entire set in a red-violet glow. I think that's part of what is so neat about this lighting - it almost can take on a life of it's own at times - it's seem to be as much of an entity as the people on stage. Yeah, yeah, I know... I'm obsessed with pretty colors. Barry really connected with Mandy tonight - or at least, I felt he did. He performed the song looking out at the audience - he usually doesn't do that. In fact, he usually performs the song looking down at his piano. But for almost the entire song, he looked straight out at the audience. To me, that really connected - it made me feel the peformance more. Again, just an interesting change. (and again, these are just my opinions which are worth absolutely nothing - and I'm well aware that if I never went to another show, no one would know or care - so, I'm just documenting my own thoughts here). The audience sang loudly with Barry for I Write the Songs. Actually, they sang loudly for a lot of the songs. Again, it was a surprise because it didn't seem to be a fan audience. Maybe we're seeing evolution here, maybe we're seeing a new type of fan audience emerge. As much as I used to feel like I had been left hanging with Copa, I love it now - and I'm honestly not sure why the change. Of course, seeing that handsome guy in the tux appear before me you might have something to do with it... (and he KNOWS he looks good in that tux - you can see it on his face! Ha!) Maybe it's all the pretty colors - and man, there are a lot of pretty colors. I swear, at every show I think I see something different in those backgrounds behind him. And Barry always looks so happy. He always has such a huge smile on his face. At any rate, I find myself smiling more during this portion of the show than during any other. But I still don't like to see him leave the stage. Even when he blows us a huge kiss and stands there smiling at us. Well... Maybe that makes it a little better. :-)
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