His name was Barry, he gave us glowsticks...

So, about 2 months ago, on our commute into work, E and I heard that Barry Manilow was coming to town. We were impressed when we heard that Barry wanted to reach a wider audience, and was offering tickets at a price of $7.99. I told E that secretly I have always wanted to see Barry Manilow in concert. After hearing this, I think he was a little surprised, but said to me, "if you can get tickets, I would entertain the thought of going with you." I am not really sure if he was serious, but, I ended up getting tickets and E was a good sport for going along with my closeted dream.

So Friday night came, and we ventured out to the Xcel Energy Center, a building that was made mostly for Wild hockey, but has surprisingly excellent acoustics for concerts. (In fact it was in that very building that E and met at a Barenaked Ladies concert.)

When we arrived, we waited for the elevator with 3 other people that happened to be about our age. That was refreshing, as I had a thought that we may be the youngest people in the entire building. When we were in the corridors, it was amazing to see many women, mostly in their 50's+, dressed in tight fitting, low cut dresses with big huge hair. E and I decided that the name for these women had to be "Mani-hos".

We went to our seats, and we were in the front row of the top deck. I thought they were going to be good seats, but we literally had to climb down the side of a cliff to get to the front row. I am not really good with heights, so this was a bit unnerving.

There was one open seat between me and the next group of "Fanilows", and so I thought that the seat would remain empty. No one comes to a Barry Manilow concert alone, do they? I was wrong. In walked a lady, probably in her 40's, ready to rock with Barry. (E leaned over to me and said, "Aw, she came to the concert Man-alone." ) Good one!

The usher climbed down the cliff to our row before the show began and started passing out individually wrapped yellow sticks that had "Manilow: Music and Passion" printed on them. If you cracked the stick in your hand, they glowed a fluorescent green. I am pretty sure the "Fanilows" were probably going nuts for their "Maniglow" sticks. It was kind of neat to see them all on the main level from our seats. E cracked his Maniglow stick in his hand and it lit up very brightly. He said, "There we Manigo". :)

All in all, the concert was good, but Barry brought a bit of cheese with him. He joked how he was Prince, and then said that he was kidding because he had a bigger nose. He called himself a "sex god", talked about drugs in the 60's while smoking a fake joint but then said the only drug he does is Lipitor, and few others that were seriously cheesy.

Even at 64 years of age, his voice still sounded good, and he was moving around alright, even after hip surgeries. My favorite part had to be when he ended up doing a duet of "Mandy" with himself, while they put up footage of his Midnight Special concert from 1975. That was actually pretty cool.

All in all, it was fun, and now I can say that I have seen Barry Manilow in concert. I know that most people my age would laugh at me for wanting to see him. Being that I was raised on many different kinds of music, I am ok with saying, I am a fan. Maybe not a Fanilow, but at least a fan...