Everything was shipshape at the Comcast Arena in Everett on Sunday night. Barry wouldn’t have wanted it any other way. But rather than taking the hipster’s (or newspaper writer’s) aery high road, I will instead work with a few popular conceptions about the songwriting institution of Manilow, Inc.
To wit: he writes the songs. Karyn tells me that the speaker here is not any single person, but music itself. How about that! I suppose it does make it easier to cut the guy a little slack, but it doesn’t make the lyrics any more poignant to me. Indeed, nothing will; I’ve never been moved by these paeans to longing and loss; the schmaltz (shmälts, n: rendered chicken fat, from the Yiddish) just doesn’t cure what ails me. But Karyn’s into it, and you gotta respect. We have a sort of live-and-let-live attitude when it comes to music, anyway, so I was there for the spectacle and the complacency-shake. What a mensch, huh?
Another myth dispelled is the one that characterizes Fanilows as dowdy, aging cat lovers. I don’t know from sociology, so I’m reluctant to speak on behalf of that many people, nor do I have any unkind words for the values people attach to cultural objects. I can tell you this: it was much easier to spot the Furries at Puffy Amiyumi last year. If I aimed high, I might claim that Manilow is neither subversive nor extreme, and it’s that mushy middle this crowd reflected. But you can’t prove a negative, and besides, why have peeps if you can’t tell who they are?
It was a traveling museum come through, a Fate Marable Showboat with a smoke machine. When the confetti settled and the lights came up, you weren’t sure if it actually happened. That said, I was genuinely moved by my wife’s enthusiasm, and by the faint whiff of piano-bar smoke buried deep in the songs’ DNA. Under all the Vegas bombast, the truck-driver’s gear changes, the stock video, you could still see an intent. That’s the beauty of Song — once it’s written, it stays written, while I get flabbier with every passing year.
Tags: Barry Manilow · concert review · Separated at Birth2 Comments
2 responses so far ↓
Hey! Colbert Loves/Hates HIM, and that’s good/bad enough for me. Last year, when my wife wanted to go see him, I sent her, with her Mom along as an escort, to keep her from getting too crazy.
by the way, nice trifecta
use of Yiddish / reference to Furries / obscure Music reference
who else could pull that off, sonny boy?
I say, let ‘em go crazy. K. missed a chance to see me getting down like a white boy at David Byrne.