Barry in Vegas
What: Barry Manilow in concert
Where: The Paris Las Vegas Hotel, 3655 Las Vegas Boulevard S, Las Vegas, Nev.
When: 7:30 p.m. Friday-Sunday April 2-4, April 9-11, April 30-May 2, May 7-9, May 13-15, May 28-30, June 4-6, July 2-4, July 9-11, July 16-18 More tba
Tickets: $95-$299
Information: (800) 745-3000 or manilowparis.com. Benefit shows for the Manilow Fund for Health & Hope: http://www.starz.bz/manilowfund/
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Barry Manilow’s show at the 1,500-seat Paris Las Vegas theater proves bigger can be better — if you already have a bigger-than-life persona.
At the Paris, Manilow makes optimum use of his unique best-selling-adult-contemporary-artist-of-all-time persona.
A former rehearsal pianist and acting student, he’s able to use all of his theatrical skills now that he’s in a legitimate theater instead of the Las Vegas Hilton showroom he played for five years.
The new show continues to be autobiographical, but it also has themes of romance, love and art to tie in to the themes of the Paris Hotel. It opens with a recording of Edith Piaf singing “La Vie En Rose” with framed images of French art dangling from the ceiling.
Manilow makes his entrance with arms outstretched to fanfare from “Could It Be Magic,” as if to acknowledge his bigger-than-life images on the Vegas billboards.
The band, featuring two drums, three keyboards and a horn section, roars behind him on the Paris’ state-of-the-art sound system, and Manilow reacts like Elvis Presley making an entrance to “2001: Also Sprach Zarathustra.” He’s clearly having fun with his image.
The first third of the show is like a warm-up to the main event. There are hits like “Somewhere In the Night,” “Can’t Smile Without You” and a solo piano version of “Weekend In New England,” but Manilow eschews staples such as “I Made It Through the Rain,” “Daybreak” and “Looks Like We Made It,” as if to say this is a brand new day.
The autobiographical main act begins with Manilow talking to the audience about being raised in Brooklyn by his grandparents and divorced mom. When he sings “I Am Your Child” with images of Brooklyn hanging from the rafters, it’s as if to say he’s as much a product of his environment as his DNA.
Manilow has told the story of how his grandfather took him to a make-your-own record store when he was 4 years old, but he now dramatizes that by playing the perfectly pitched recording he made of “Nature Boy.” He then sings it live and follows with “This One’s For You” to thank his grandfather for encouraging his musical pursuit.
Manilow became a successful jingles composer in New York in the 1960s, but, instead of doing a segment on his advertising hits, as he did at the Hilton, he showcases his love of New York jazz with a Lester Young-like saxophonist providing a lead-in to his “New York City Rhythms.”
That transitions nicely to his romantic material from his “Greatest Love Songs Of All Time” CD, starting with the Gershwin classic, “Our Love Is Here To Stay.”
Manilow’s best vocals are on his own “Even Now.” He gives it a powerful modulation, but keeps it honest by interpreting it like a method actor reliving an emotional memory.
He reprises his “American Bandstand” segment with video of the ’60s dance crazes as the band performs the R&B classic, “Land Of A Thousand Dances.” Manilow plays it as an outsider, as if to goof on his limited dance skills. But this just highlights one of the show’s weaknesses. In an era of dance spectaculars by the likes of Lady Gaga and Beyonce, Manilow’s backup singers should be able to step up and really dance.
Manilow expertly takes his show from the past to present with video of his appearance on “The Midnight Special” singing his first hit, “Mandy.” It was a staple of the Hilton show when he sang a duet with his younger self, and it’s a highlight of this show, too.
It’s also the start of a buildup to a big finish. He goes into the fanfare from his second pop No. 1 hit, “I Write the Songs,” and draws the show to a climax with a big production of “Copacabana” (symbolically relocated from New York to Paris with hanging pictures of French art).
The show is a fast-paced 90 minutes and, for a top ticket of more than $200, you may wonder if that’s long enough.
But the show is pure Vegas in its leanest form. Even opening night critics who wouldn’t admit to being Manilow fans praised the production.
It’s the best Manilow show I’ve seen since his intimate 1999 concert at the Annenberg Theater in Palm Springs with philosopher Bill Edelen.
But this show is both intimate and grandiose.
