POP REVIEW : The Warmth of 2 ‘Legends’ in San Diego

It didn’t take long to see that Sports Arena wasn’t hosting its usual basketball game or Iron Maiden heavy-metal concert.

The ticket-takers Friday night wore tuxedoes, a 38-piece orchestra was stationed next to the stage and French Champagne--at $4.25 a glass--was served at refreshment stands.

Would you expect anything less for the first West Coast pairing of two show-biz “legends”?

Frank Sinatra and Liza Minnelli’s concerts Friday and Saturday nights were benefits sponsored by the San Diego State University’s Aztec Athletic Foundation to raise scholarship funds.

Tickets for the two shows were priced at a hefty $35 to $100, but that didn’t keep an estimated 27,000 people from paying about $1.3 million for the twice-in-a-lifetime opportunity to see these stars together.

The danger in all this hoopla was that Sinatra and Minnelli would act like legends. Both are larger-than-life personalities who are so wrapped up in show-biz tradition that the public perception of them already leans on caricature.

There’s buoyant, beaming, bouncy Liza-with-a-Z, the trouper who belts out every number with a wide-eyed exuberance as if each show is the most important night of her life--and then waits breathlessly as the audience anoints her with applause. It’s sometimes thrilling; it’s sometimes overkill.

Then, there’s Sinatra, who has been called the greatest male pop singer of the 20th Century so many times that even he must be tired of it. For all his humanitarian work, however, Sinatra has also been shadowed by a quick-tempered, hard-boiled image and the arrogance telegraphed in such self-aggrandizing numbers as “My Way.”

In view of the weekend Super Bowl hysteria in town and the massive arena setting, the headliners could have tried for the kind of show-biz extravaganza that, like half-time football shows, borders on the grotesque.

Instead, Sinatra and Minnelli took a different and wiser path. They opted for intimacy and warmth.

Minnelli, who came out in a sequined pants outfit for the first hour, quickly established her link with bubbly, Broadway tradition with a big, brassy rendition of Irving Berlin’s “Alexander’s Ragtime Band.”

The rest of the way, however, she tended to be down-to-earth, rather than legendary on a wide range of mostly Broadway-based material, including a salute to “Cabaret” songwriters Fred Ebb and John Kander.

By not overstating, Minnelli allowed the audience to glide along with her emotionally, turning what on some nights seem like cloying gestures (the quick steps and arched-back poses) into natural extensions of the music.

After intermission, Sinatra took over and longtime fans surely needed a moment of adjustment. There was a hoarseness and, even, a wavering edge to his voice as he went through Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart’s “Where or When,” making you wonder how Sinatra, at 72, was going to be able to maneuver even more challenging numbers.

Though there were times (especially on the more contemporary material, such as Stevie Wonder’s “You Are the Sunshine of My Life”) when Sinatra’s vocal command was again shaky, his authority and control improved as the concert went on.

The brilliance of Sinatra’s phrasing was best demonstrated on the contrast between a marvelously playful rendition of another Rodgers-Hart song, “The Lady Is a Tramp,” and a tender, confessional rendition of Johnny Mercer and Harold Arlen’s saloon standard “One for My Baby.”

The most affecting aspect of the concert, however, was Sinatra’s graciousness. He has long saluted songwriters, arrangers and his musical director (Bill Miller) when introducing songs, but he also repeatedly thanked the audience for their applause--not in a fawning way, but gentle asides.

And he sang “My Way” softly, in the manner of a man sharing memories with his audience and giving thanks, rather than boasting. This was a strange sweetness about Sinatra on stage that is hard to appreciate if you’ve only read about him in tabloids.

At the end, Sinatra and Minnelli went through a predictable series of songs about New York, but the tone remained low key and warm. By resisting the temptation to overkill, Sinatra and Minnelli came across as human and endearing performers, not caricatures--performers who are in touch with their art and their audience.

Talk about your Super Bowl upsets.