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Ultimate Manilow-The Hits - Las Vegas Hilton - October 2, 2008


(View photo gallery here)

In spite of the somber events of the week, tonight's show was excellent! I definitely saw some changes from the show I saw when Ultimate Manilow first opened. Some of the differences are probably only because Keely is out right now. But I think others are permanent (well, as permanent as you can be in Manilow-land!).

The show seemed more emotional for Barry - more so than usual. Of course, that's just my perception - I obviously have no clue what's going on in Barry's mind. But his mannerisms, his vocals, the tears in his eyes - he seemed to be as much into this show as we were.

There were differences to the opening video - song names I didn't see before (maybe? My memory is going in my old age.) At any rate, I had more of a feeling of being at a Manilow show this time. I definitely had the butterflies in my stomach again! Something else that may just be perception, but it seemed as if the silhouette segment lasted longer than it did before. I still like that part of the show.

Oh, I didn't take many photos last night - there are a few good ones, but for the most part I just watched. I really kind of needed a Barry fix.

The show opened with the backups dancing out, as usual. Kye filled in for Keely on this part. I could actually hear what they were singing this time, so a big improvement with the sound. I like this opening for the show - it seems to build you up a little more - makes you that much more anxious to see Barry walk out of the smoke. He still opens with It's a Miracle (please, never change that!)

I'm still very impressed with the colors in this new show. In fact, they seemed even more vibrant tonight. There's a point during Looks Like We Made It where the curtain behind Barry is a beautiful royal blue (actually, just a little darker than that) and it compliments his eyes so beautifully. I found myself forgetting that he was even singing for a moment because the visual effect was so stunning. And there was another point later in the show where they somehow managed to make that same curtain appear - well, kind of translucent. I was sitting there thinking, "How did they do that?!?" Really beautiful.

The sound may have been fixed for the backups' opening number, but it wasn't great for Barry when the show opened. Not far in to the show he asked them to turn his mic up - and that improved it. But there were still times when it wasn't what it normally is.

Barry is still doing the same opening medley, but with a portion of The Old Songs on the front. He walks the stage during Daybreak, and continues to walk during Somewhere in the Night. At first I felt as if that would ruin the effect of SITN - but when he got to the right side stage, he put in a couple of moves that saved it!

As they opened the decades medley, Kye and Barry did something to cause them to get the giggles - I missed whatever it was. Actually, there were several times during the night when the giggles popped up.

During the 50's part of the medley, Melanie did the jitterbug with Barry (in the spot that Keely normally does it). And it was as cute as the time that Keely and Barry had trouble getting the count right. (Uhm, I think Barry's the one having trouble with the count, by the way! LOL) And Barry also did a tap dance for us during the medley - still cute.

I like the medley much better. Maybe I'm just getting used to it. Even though we only get a snippet of these songs, I didn't feel as if I were losing out - not the way I did when I first saw the new show. The 60's segment still seems to be kind of short, but not so much as to detract from the medley. Monica and Melanie filled in to do Keely's part during the medley. Something that was different (maybe to accommodate the missing backup) - when they did Can't Take My Eyes Off of You, it was only Melanie and Barry - Kye went back to dance in the background with Monica.

Barry's speaking voice sounded a little raspy, but his singing voice sounded fine. Weekend in New England was beautiful - this was one of the songs where he seemed more emotional than usual - not more passionate, just more emotional. For the most part (until the end), he sang more softly and gently than he normally does. I noticed some slight differences in the music, specifically the piano - although couldn't tell if it was coming from Barry or from one of the other guys since I couldn't see Barry's hands.

Another thing that really impressed me tonight was the orchestration, the music. There's more going on there. Some of the songs were just so beautiful musically - I'm not talking vocals here. At one point during the show, Brandon was playing the flute (beautiful!) and Ron W. was conducting him. There are a lot of little things like that going on.

Related to that, one of the things that really grabbed me last night was watching Barry "conduct". It was as they were going into Memory - Barry stood there with his back to the audience - picture the lights dimmed, but still casting a warm, mahogany, glow over Barry - and Barry is conducting a beautiful arrangement. I've never seen him do that before. The effect was stunning, at least to me.

Looks Like We Made It was exceptional. Barry did make it a little more "sexy" than he has the last few times I've seen him perform it - well, maybe he made it a LOT more sexy. At any rate, it really stuck out as one of the best songs of the night.

And so did Tryin' to Get the Feeling Again and Even Now - especially TTGTFA. Barry also sang these songs more softly - which I thought worked very well. The transition between the two songs was also outstanding - this was another example of the orchestration that I was talking about earlier. The "music" really moved me tonight - not just the vocals, not just Barry's performance - but the MUSIC.

The feelings of camaraderie and "family" between Barry and the backups, and even the musicians, was stronger tonight than ever before.

Memory was also outstanding. Not one of my favorite songs, but I have to admit, I really enjoy watching Barry perform it. He put everything he had into the song tonight- again, a lot of emotion, a little less passion.

Barry sang I Made It Through the Rain. That one kind of spoke to me tonight.

The commercial jingle segment has been added back into the show. Barry made a reference to the Very Strange Medley from his Live album. This segment isn't nearly as elaborate as what he did back then. Barry sat behind the piano and played to the jingles - I kind of liked that. He did State Farm and Band Aid - and he also did the Hoover and Vick's commercials. Then he closed it with You Deserve a Break Today. But he left one out - where was Meow Mix? LOL Anyone remember when Barry did the Craig Ferguson Show not long ago? Craig was teasing Barry about putting a tiger into his act - and Barry looked horrified. Then Craig said, "Well, just get a little white cat and let it run across the stage!" LOL I keep having visions of that popping into my head. Okay, I have a vivid imagination - what can I say?

They performed New York City Rhythm. Didn't take as many photos of this, mainly because I was enjoying listening to everyone play the piano. (Ron P. wins!) I really enjoyed watching Barry play tonight, too.

Barry also did the upbeat version of Could It Be Magic. Love that song! The song was met with a wild crowd reaction. At one point during the night, after a very loud crowd response, Barry said, "You make me feel like Justin Timberlake or something." Barry, Justin doesn't even come close... Johnny Depp doesn't even come close! (and that's saying something, at least to me! LOL) Anyway, after the song was over, Barry proclaimed, "I'm STILL a sex god!"

Somewhere Down the Road and Ships. Wow! Both performances were fantastic. As I've mentioned before, SDTR is kind of like my theme song right now - the lyrics are very, very meaningful to me. I was hoping Barry would sing it. He sang the song gently and quietly - and he was very, very emotional. Lots of tears in his eyes. Some tears in the audience's eyes, too. I held on and kept the tears at bay this time (can't see the lump in my throat - ha ha!).

Barry did preface the song with the remarks he's been making about song lyrics not necessarily being about romance (true!) and that he often thought about friends and family and people that were important to him that are no longer around. And then he said, "Dogs I used to know." The audience laughed - but Barry got tears in his eyes again - you could tell he was serious. Nothing wrong with that - because I can sit here and name every single dog, cat, and every other type of animal that's been in my life - they're people to me - in fact, much more important than most people to me, because if you love an animal and treat them right, they'll love you back - humans don't necessarily have that quality. Anyway, after the audience stopped laughing, Barry kind of shrugged and said, "Important people" in a tone that sounded like he was really saying "They're important to me."

And then Ships. Barry really acted this one out. It was also a soft performance - that seemed to be the mood he was in tonight. (I love his soft performances as much as I love the powerful ones) But when he got to the second verse, Barry became someone else - his father, perhaps? It reminded me of his performance of Not What You See. At any rate, it wasn't an over-the-top change of character - it was subtle, but it was there - very obvious to me, anyway. (As a side note, I do believe I heard the Brooklyn accent several times last night.) At any rate, the performance was very, very effective. Besides really making the song come alive, it also changed the tone of that segment. When you combine those two songs, it's very easy to slide into a sad, or even sorrowful tone. But the way Barry performed Ships tonight, I was so caught up in the performance that I didn't really think about that - it was almost like a mini-play.

Mandy/Could It Be Magic was another very emotional song - I have photos of Barry with tears in his eyes. The tears especially show up during the I Write the Songs photos. (On another side note - favorite white jacket! Yay!) There was a cute moment during I Write the Songs... And I'm not encouraging this, because it was cute once, but would become irritating quickly. But when Barry sang the lyrics "I write the songs that make the young girls...", someone in the audience screamed. So he changed it to, "I write the songs that make the young girls scream..."

Copa was done a little differently than the last time I saw it. The girls didn't come out in the big headdresses - don't know if this was a permanent change or if it was just because Keely wasn't there. Instead, they did it, for the most part, the way they did in the old show. The difference was that they brought the big staircase out and Barry walked down it. Before Barry came out, Kye came to the center of the stage and kind of rapped, "Where's Manilow?"

Barry closed with the It's a Miracle reprise. Silver mylar streamers along with some confetti came down. I was struck with multiple balls of mylar - I'm wearing full body armor to the show tonight. LOL Okay, not really - it didn't even leave a bruise (this time!).

All of the streamers managed to miss Barry - but Monica took care of that. She grabbed a couple of them and ran up and threw them around his neck. LOL It was a cute moment. Barry wore them for the rest of the show.

As he took his final bows, Barry seemed to linger on the stage a little longer than he normally does. He seemed to take extra bows - and more importantly, he seemed to take a lot of long, contemplative looks at the audience. Of course, I'm sure we were all doing the same thing in his direction.



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