My sister called me yesterday morning with “the deal of a lifetime.” She had the great fortune to be working with someone who was trying to unload their $755 per seat Streisand tickets and was willing to sell them for $200 each. We’ve both been big fans for as long as we can remember so it was an easy decision to say yes.
I hopped on the 5:30 train from Phila., arrived in Penn Station around 7:00 and was in my seat at Madison Square Garden by 7:45.
We sat directly to the side of the stage perhaps 15 or so rows up. The unfortunate part of having these seats was that there was a huge clump of celebrities in the front quadrant of the floor on the opposite side of the stage that Barbra seemed to be more attentive to than any other section. So whenever she moved from center stage she went and stood in the “celebrity corner.” Not the end of the world, we still had a good view of her right side. We were also sitting under the video screen so that was no use to us either.
Before going to the show I read several reviews of her performance Monday night. I’d say they were all right on the money. When it was Barbra singing, which is what everyone was there for, it was great. However, featured throughout the show was the pop/operatic boy band Il Divo (a Simon Cowell creation—need I say more).
There aren’t enough adjectives for me to adequately describe how much they suck. They were pure torture and why she felt the need to waste so much time with them in her show is beyond me! They first popped out of the floor in the middle of Evergreen singing along with Barbra and totally destroyed this classic song. Then there was a painfully long, scripted dialog between the boys and Babs where they lavished her with praise and pretended to have a crush on her. I just wanted Chuck Barris to go out there and hit a gong or something. It was awful, but not as bad as her leaving the stage to these four chumps so they could sing way too many crappy, semi-operatic tunes alone. They are stiff as boards and it is obvious that every move has been over-rehearsed and preplanned to the point that they could easily be mistaken for automatons. Every two seconds there was some dramatic crescendo, one after the other. Ach, I wished it was a video game so I could have whipped out the sniper rifle and picked these guys off one by one. The fantastical idea of watching their smarmy, perfectly slicked heads explode all over the stage pleased me.
Once their solo section of the show was over we thought we wouldn’t have to be bothered with them again but we were wrong. They came back to torment us a few more times and crapped up Somewhere, which I would have loved to have heard her sing alone. I think their presence in the concert really brought it down several notches.
There was also the now infamous Bush skit where in Monday night’s show it resulted in Barbra tossing an F-bomb into the audience. She joked about that saying “you can take the girl out of Brooklyn, but you can’t take Brooklyn out of the girl.” It was cute and I was hoping the little political sketch would have been taken out of the show but it wasn’t.
I have to say that the impersonator is a dead ringer for Bush, very convincing. So much so that the chica sitting next to me, who was evidently a Selena impersonator herself, almost shit her pants when “Bush” came out on stage. “Oh my God…it’s the president!” she exclaimed as she shot out of her seat. I didn’t tell her the truth and burst her bubble, it was far too amusing to watch her frantically shoot as many photos as she could with her camera phone.
Intermission gave us the opportunity to scope out the celebs in the audience. We saw Bill and Hillary, Regis and Joy, Rosie, Sarah Jessica and supposedly Kim Cattrall was out there but I can’t confirm it was her, Selena next to me was swearing it was but I’m not sure. I know there were more of them down there but I didn’t have my binoculars and that was the best I could do with my tired eyes.
All in all, the parts of the show where it was just Barbra singing were great. Most of the song selections were excellent and by the end of the show she really seemed to be getting into it. She appeared to be having the most fun as she really loosened up and moved around the stage during the three encores.
So in the end I’m glad I went, thanks Nippy Nu-Nu!
