Barry Manilow

Yes, I saw Barry Manilow. I'm not ashamed of that. OK, initially I was, but not now that I've done it. I was attracted to it because they had $20 tickets. How do you pass that up? When I get tickets I usually end up in the second row from the top. I don't know how many times that has happened to me. It probably would have this time, but he didn't sell out so they blocked out the top level of the arena and gave us new tickets farther down. Not only that, but kind of near the stage, too. He had $40 t-shirts. When your tickets are half of what the t-shirt sales are, you know you've got a good deal. While I'm over my initial embarrassment, I'm sure not going to wear a Barry Manilow t-shirt out in public, so I passed on that.

Upon entry, everyone got a glow stick. I put mine in my pocket, but later I took it out. I didn't want it accidently going off and getting some kind of radiation burn or something. I don't know where it ended up. Ten thousand people and I'm the only one without a glow stick. Oh well.

I'm not the biggest Barry fan, but I must say, he was really good. Some people don't sound as good in concert as their recordings, but he did. I did have to put up with what to me is the trifecta of awful Barry songs - Mandy, Looks Like We Made It, and the the grossly sappy Weekend in New England. But beyond those he was great. Bandstand Boogie and Jump Shout Boogie - You can't even say those names without smiling. Although I wasn't a huge fan, the place seemed to be overrun with Manilowmaniacs. At one point in the concert he did say, "We've already done a lot of our hits, but there are a bunch more that we've put into a medley. I think you'll really like this. But if you were drug here by someone else, this will be torture." Nice, Barry. He knows he's not for everyone.

So Barry was great. I'm still not getting the t-shirt, though.