Barbra Streisand In Las Vegas- Once In A Lifetime

Written by Sande Caplin on August 12, 2016. Posted in Music.

Las Vegas is one of nine venues around the country I had a choice to see one of the great superstars of our time, the seemingly immortal Barbra Streisand! She has a long history in Sin City. Starting out as an “extra added attraction” opening act for Liberace at the Riviera in 1963. Coincidently, the Riviera is due to be blasted down completely next Tuesday live on Las Vegas television.

Streisand has come and gone here over the years. Her last tours have included Vegas and she stated that Vegas helped her get back to the stage after a 27-year hiatus from the stage after an incident forgetting the lyrics to her song at Central Park in the late 60’s. She had terrible stage fright. In this day of technology, she has the trusty teleprompter at her disposal, although she didn’t appear to look at it much.

Her repertoire consists of her hits from stage, screen, and albums. “The Way We Were” was the highly anticipated opening number and it was perfection! It just went up from there. An orchestra of 60 and 3 backup singers provided melodic tones for the 22 song set list. Ms. Streisand told stories about recording the songs or making the movies. Her famous husband James Brolin was in the audience she announced and during intermission I could see Mr. Brolin posing for selfies with fans.

When Barbra returned from intermission she went into Broadway tunes to promote her new album “Encore” duets with various actors such as Hugh Jackman, Jamie Foxx and a video song with the late Anthony Newley. In her previous two shows in California, some of her famous duet partners joined her on stage. A bit disappointing there was no one joining her in Vegas, it didn’t matter. The crowd in the nearly sold out new T-Mobile arena was there to see the one and only Barbra. Fans screaming out to her, she had a sense of humor, “Sorry, I don’t take requests, I used to a long time ago for like $3.00”! Video clips of her amazing career played on the big screens, memories of her life and ours.

When you think about Streisand singing “Happy Days Are Here Again” to three Presidents (Clinton, JFK and Johnson) and her career from Broadway to the movie screen, she is the rare talent to act, sing, and direct. But make no mistake, the voice of Streisand is probably the greatest of this century in modern music. How many more shows she will do at 74 is anyone’s guess. I am just glad to have heard her live once in my lifetime! Merchandise was completely sold out by the end of the night Set list below:

1.   The Way We Were
2.   Everything
3.   Being at War With Each Other
4.   Everything Must Change
5.   Woman in Love
6.   Stoney End
7.   No More Tears (Enough Is Enough)
8.   Evergreen
9.   You Don’t Bring Me Flowers
10.   Pure Imagination
11.   Who Can I Turn To (When Nobody Needs Me)
12.   Losing My Mind
13.   Isn’t This Better
14.   How Lucky Can You Get
15.   With One More Look at You
16.   Children Will Listen
17.   Don’t Rain on My Parade
18.   People
19.   Happy Days Are Here Again
20.   Encore:
21.   I Didn’t Know What Time it Was