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Ultimate Manilow-The Hits - Las Vegas Hilton - April 23, 2009


(View photo gallery here)

M2-A-33

Barry jumped (literally) out into the smoke/fog as the show started. He was wearing the bright red jacket again. Besides loving the way it goes with Barry's eyes, that jacket looks so cool as he's standing there in the fog with a little light to the sides of him. You can see that it's red, even then.

Although there was some concern at first, it turned out to be an excellent show. Barry started the show with some dry throat issues. Of course, *he* was the one that drew attention to it. No one in the audience could really tell other than those of us who have seen this show many times. But Barry thought he didn't sound good enough. As he ended the opening medley, he made a comment to his band, "That didn't sound very good" - the audience disagreed with him. As usual, Barry is his own worst critic. He didn't sound bad at all.

Then Barry said that he would try to get as far in the show as he could. He introduced Weekend in New England, said if he could make it through that song he could make it through anything...and then sat down at the piano. Before he started the song, he cut his eyes to the side to give us one of his funny faces, then crossed both fingers. The performance was beautiful.

There's only been one time recently when Barry touched me more with that particular song. Kind of like last time, he started it softly and ended it passionately. Of course, he got a big standing ovation - and it wasn't sympathy - it was because the performance was outstanding.

I have to say up front that I didn't take a lot of photos. And that was in violation of direct orders from Janet and Carolyn who were sitting behind me - I was supposed to take a lot of great photos for them, and, uh, I didn't do it... Sorry! Feel free to put me in front of the firing squad next time you see me!

But it looks like the lighting has changed, because there were no yellow people in the photos this time!

I thought the audience was great - especially for a Thursday night. Everything Barry did was met with a lot of applause and cheering. He got a lot of ovations. I suspect (might be wrong) that he would like to see an even more animated audience - but you know, the audience isn't all fans. And even among the fans, not everyone is outgoing enough to dance and cheer and yell out "NOW!!!" when he sings "When can I touch you?" (regardless of what may be silently going through our minds!). I suspect I'm a major disappointment to him because I'm frequently there but I'm not always standing and cheering with the other fans. I am what I am. I was probably a turtle in a previous life since I'm so good at pulling my head back into my shell. What can I say? I swear, I'm cheering inside the shell - LOL! And it gets REALLY loud in there!

Oh, yeah - I mentioned Monica's new hairstyle last time, but didn't have a good photo of it to post.

The decades medley was great. I promised last time that I wouldn't take photos of him during his silly dance bit - and I didn't. But you have no idea how hard it was! He was even sillier this time! Hmmmm... In my last review I said that it would be the last time I would try to catch those moments with my camera. So..... If I use someone else's camera next time, do you think I could get away with taking more photos? Works for me...

Barry did another very "stimulating" version of Looks Like We Made It. I attended the show with someone who doesn't get to see many shows - she said tonight's rendition of the song was VERY sexy. Yes, it was - and has been the last several times I've seen it. Oh, and someone said that I should explain what I meant when I said that Barry got "naughty" during the song - not on a public board, I won't... LOL Listen to the lyrics of the chorus and use your imagination - now, imagine Barry helping us use our imagination... Now get your mind out of the gutter!

You know, it doesn't matter how sedate the audience is, Looks Like We Made It always manages to get their attention!

Finally! I finally got some shots of Kye from his moment during Islands in the Stream! The audience loves this, even though they don't always get up to dance and clap - you can tell they really love it. I love it, too - for the past week I've been listening to that song a lot, singing along in my car, getting so caught up in the music that I start speeding... If I get a ticket, I'm going to send it to Barry because it's his fault for coming out with such a catchy arrangement.

The band started the music for the Tryin' to Get the Feeling Again/Even Now medley. But Barry didn't do that. He went for a drink of water (or hot tea, or whatever) - and someone in the audience yelled, "Barry, will you marry me?" He didn't hear what they said, he thought they were making a request (well, I guess they were - probably a lot of ladies would like that make that same request - but...).

So Barry if asked if someone was making a request. When he did, people started yelling out names of songs - Barry said, "I can't hear what you're saying," and he turned to sit down at the piano. Then a loud masculine voice shouted out, "Love you, Barry!" Barry said, "I heard that..." - and the audience laughed.

Barry sat down at the piano and said that he wanted to do something different. Instead of doing the usual song(s), he said that he wanted to do an album cut - that he'd been having the urge to do this song for several weeks. And that because there had been so much drama in his life in the last couple of weeks, he was going to do it. So, he performed I Am Your Child. It was a really emotional performance. He got a standing ovation from the audience.

When you attend these shows, there are certain moments, memories that seem to be forever etched in your mind - I think the look in Barry's eyes as he looked at the audience giving him an ovation for I Am Your Child will be one of those memories for me.

Barry also didn't do New York City Rhythm tonight. Instead, he told us he was going to do a song from Here at the Mayflower. He sang The Night That Tito Played. He needed the lyrics sheet for parts of the song, but he made it very entertaining while he read them. There were two sheets of lyrics - after he finished the first sheet, he kind of defiantly slammed (half-slammed) the first sheet down on the piano - very funny. When I first heard about this song being in the show, there was a dance with Melanie mentioned, but not with anyone else. Actually, he dances with all of the backups. Because it was a new bit I missed a lot of good shots of the dancing - but I caught a couple. Anyway, the song was a great addition to the show, and a lot of fun - as much fun as They Dance.

We did get I Made It Through the Rain - very nice, a lot of cute Grandpa moments. And also Can't Smile Without You.

The lighting has definitely changed when Barry appears at the top of the steps during the Copa reprise. This was the first time that you could really see his face - and see that he's making funny faces! LOL

Once again, Somewhere Down the Road was my favorite song of the night - and the combination of that and Ships was my favorite part of the show. I'm really kind of torn - because I so look forward to those songs each night - but when we get to them, I also know the show is close to being over.

I think Somewhere Down the Road gets more emotional each time - Barry is more emotional, and he makes us more emotional. It's so, so beautiful the way he's performing it now. And when it's just Barry - no music... There were NO signs of voice problems during that song tonight - it was exquisite.

Ships was again fantastic. Such a great performance. Tons of emotion in that song, too. Barry is totally becoming the characters in the song.

The rest of the show is kind of a blur, I don't remember much about it. It was the standard ending, good performances. I just let something take my concentration away from the show, so I kind of lost it. My bad.

That's the only show I'm attending this week. If all goes well, I'll be back for the convention.

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