It sounds as if Barbra Streisand’s latest final concert has proven to be a huge success artistically and in terms of liveliness:
It was an evening that elicited tears, standing ovations, raucous laughter and shouts of joy from the audience _ and was just in the first few minutes.
Yes, Barbra Streisand’s return to touring after a 12-year absence was the extravaganza that it promised to be. Monday night’s show at Madison Square Garden was the third stop of a 20-city jaunt across the nation _ a virtual lovefest between the ultimate diva and an adoring, sold-out, celebrity-dotted crowd.
Streisand effortlessly crooned through a select repertoire of the hits she’s amassed during her four-decade-plus career. But night’s most riveting moment came during what was perhaps the only unscripted _ and truly uncomfortable _ episode in the three-hour show.
There was Streisand, enduring a smattering of very loud jeers as she and “George Bush” _ a celebrity impersonator _ muddled through a skit that portrayed the president as a bumbling idiot.
Though most of the crowd offered polite applause during the slightly humorous routine, it got a bit too long, especially for a few in the audience who just wanted to hear Streisand sing like she had been doing for the past hour.
“Come on, be polite!” the well-known liberal implored during the sketch as she and “Bush” exchanged zingers. But one heckler wouldn’t let up. And finally, Streisand let him have it.
“Shut the (expletive) up!” Streisand bellowed, drawing wild applause. “Shut up if you can’t take a joke!”
With that one F-word, the jeers ended. And the message was delivered _ no one gets away with trying to upstage Barbra Streisand, especially not in her hometown.
Once the outburst (which Streisand later apologized for) was over, Streisand noted that “the artist’s role is to disturb,” and delivered a message of tolerance before launching into a serenely beautiful rendition of “Somewhere.” That put the focus back on what the audience came for _ her voice, one of the greatest female instruments of her generation.
Streisand has now become one of those artists who some will dislike because of her political views. But in musical terms, when she passes from the scene they’ll likely consider her the female equivilent of Frank Sinatra in terms of how she uses her voice as an instrument. Her role in “Meet The Fockers” won her rave reviews and introduced her to a new generation as a great comedic actress (yours truly knows because he knows of a pre-teen and a teen who loved her in that film and didn’t know much about her before then).
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.