Thursday night was Barbra Streisand's 82nd live performance since 1963, a corollary to Jay-Z's 8 night opening stand at the Home of the Brooklyn Nets, Barclay Center. The context was Brooklyn: Jay-Z, (namechecked during a "You're The Top" with a revised lyric in tribute to Brooklyn) talked about staying in Brooklyn, Barbra Streisand, one of the greatest singers of all time, talked about returning, but to a Brooklyn of the 1940s. A Brooklyn long gone.
Jay-Z looked out at his Borough last month and saw his past in Projects and drug pushing, pimping and rhymin'. Streisand looked out and saw Yeshiva's and families, High School Proms and curly hair. Same place, 30 years apart in time, faith, skin pigmentation. But the evenings worked off each other. Neither set was particularly good: I've seen both performers to much better advantage at MSG (the crown jewel of Arena's that BC wants to steal) but both of them had a sense of the moment.
Really, it was two oversized egos in abeyance to their childhood: as if their myth and Brooklyn's myth were meeting somewhere in the middle. But the nearly three hour (including intermission) set never nailed it down. Barbra, sipping chicken soup, and nursing a cold, turned BC into her own living room, with an easy going rapport. When the fans started shouting for the house lights to be dimmed, she snapped to her lights person, "You heard them, dim them". She also expressed herself, explained who she was, as a main part of her identity, she is rude, she said, because she is from Brooklyn and therefore direct: a real person, one of us. But the concept didn't hold 9and was sort of dropped) and the forces of her real concept (favorite songwriters) pushed the setlist in places it didn't need to go.
The first songs of both the set and the intermission were standards (I guess "As If We Never Left" can be considered one by now) and "You're The Tops" rewritten for the occasion, both were cheesy, neither worked, and on one she completely screwed up the new lyric. At first she settled down into stories of her Brooklyn youth and said hello to family members, his brother, others, in the audience. But for most of the evening she sang songs by and spoke about the friends of hers who had written songs for her. Lyricists Alan and Marilyn Bergman, composers Jule Styne and Marvin Hamlisch.
She also trotted out three guests, Il Divo, Chris Botti and her son, Jason Gould, who all played with her and also by themselves. Pleasant enough and the movie Gould had made for his mothers birthday, of the two throughout the years, was very moving. There was a q and a, with Barbra, who is known for her opinions, relegating Mitt Romney to "he doesn't know the say to Sesame Street and let's hope he doesn't know the way to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue".
As for the ssongs: "Sam You Made The Pants Too Long" and a devastating "The Way We Were" were the evening highlights. The latter, performed as a tribute to her close friend, the late Marvin Hamlisch was the emotional apex of the evening. I have never heard her sing it better and it was more touching than her duet with Jason on "How Deep Is The Ocean".
But when compared to her 2000 retirement concert at MSG (something else she has in common with Jay-Z) , it lacks the unerring sense of song to moment,. 2000 was easier because it was a career retrospective (no guests, no opening act) so the form was built in and all she had to do was follow all those great songs. "Back To Brooklyn" has two themes, Brooklyn and favored songwriters. Perhaps there was a hint of Jewish identity, Barbra absolutely portrayed her childhood through a Jewish paradigm, and all three tributes were to Jewish people. But if it was, it was understated.
Instead, she dipped her toes in here and there, singing MAYBE half the time. It felt imperfect for a woman known as a perfectionist. The concluding "Make Our Garden", with the 50 deep Brooklyn Youth Orchestra, would have better served with a better song. Some of the songs were not among her best and while she absolute improves everything she touches, still "Here's To Life"? And also, Barbra also sings "Bewitched, Bothered And Bewildered" -a song I have heard so many times before it holds nothing for me, and she sang it so beautifully it was new again. This is not a mere mortal singing. At 70 years old, this is perfection. She sounds the same. Her upper register is still there, the tone, the smooth gorgeous like butter. The handsone not prettiness resonates gracefulness. It is hard to overstate Streisand's singing. It makes up for anything you can say about this ragged night. How she can take "Enough Is Enough" and "The Way He Makes Me Feel" -disco fodder and pop schmaltz, and transform them to American Standard Epics… And on a great minor work, "Some Other Time", she makes us here it as a masterpiece. Maybe it is one. I can't tell any more.
On Thursday night, she wasn't overpowering with the voice (she was saving it a little, probably because of the cold), she didn't plummet us. It was a tender caress of a voice and it was moving for its simplicity and smartness. An amazing instrument. I consider Barbra the second best female singer I've ever seen (after Aretha), and Thursday didn't change my mind. But if you are going play 82 concerts every 50 odd years, it better be the greatest ever. Her retirement concert was, this wasn't. But it will do .
Grade: B+