tommyo@ihuxw.UUCP (06/23/83)
Last night, at the Poplar Creek outdoor theatre located just N.W. of Chicago, Barry Manilow opened his 1983 American tour. If you`re a Manilow fan, you`ll be happy to know that the concert was great. He did most of his hits, very often in a 2 or 3 song medley (Missing were "Somewhere In The Night", "When I Wanted You", "Weekend in NE", "Lonely Together", "Ships"). He handled the ballads very well, especially "Memory", "This One`s For You", and "Lay Me Down"(From Manilow II, I think). The up-tempo songs were good, though I didn`t care a lot for his opening number "Hot Tonight". He also banged away on a small electric organ during "Some Kind of Friend" that I didn`t care for too much. His version of "The Lion Sleeps" to open act 2 wasn`t too bad. He got his biggest response from his ballads. He also tossed in "American Bandstand", which included a nifty little dance scene with his 2 female backup singers, and the title cut from his latest album "Here Comes The Night" He didn`t do the entire "Copacabana"(yea), but did toss in some dancing at that point too. The opening of the second part of the show, after a 20 minute intermission, had the Bugs Bunny cartoon where Bugs leads a symphony orchestra, followed by BARRY-TONE NEWS, a black and white short describing Barry`s world tour, which was pretty funny. Barry did some of his usual shtick (the clarinet, who would write songs that were SO depressing) and also had a woman come up on stage to sing "I Don`t Walk Without You" with him. The lighting was good, sound was fine, though a couple times the background singers were hard to hear, and he had a big backdrop that he had different things on (NY skyline for "NY City Rhythm", stars for a ballad or 2) Without the intermission, the concert ran about 2 1/4 hours, which is pretty good. Admission price for the pavillion seats was kinda high ($18), but for a big Manilow fan like myself, it was worth it. Tom O`Connor ihuxw!tommyo
bdot@hogpd.UUCP (06/24/83)
When I was the usher/ticket taker supervisor at the Garden State Arts Center
in Holmdel, NJ a few years back, Manilow pulled a stunt I never forgave him
for. The theater was sold out (~13000 tickets) weeks in advance and on the night
of the first show, he brought a group of 15 friends with him and insisted that
we seat them in particular seats HE had picked out for them. Well, his contract
didn't call for such a thing so we resisted. He refused to start the show until
we agreed to seat his friends. Try to explain this to the fans who happen to be
sitting in the seats he wanted to use. That didn't work and I admit I really
didn't blame the people for refusing to give up the seats they rightfully
paid for. We ended up setting up wooden chairs in the aisles for his friends and
the show got started an hour late. He also insisted that OUR stagehands wear
black T-shirts to distinguish them from HIS people who he never talked to
anyway. He put on a good show but alienated every employee of the theater and
the people he asked us to move. I never liked him after that.
A former fan,
John Barrett