Pop Music Reviews : A Purposeful, Personable Barry Manilow at Universal

Explaining the genesis of his mostly autobiographical show on Tuesday at the Universal Amphitheatre, Barry Manilow quoted John F. Kennedy: “We can’t know where we’re going until we know where we’ve been.”

While invoking the words of a President to summarize the intention of a pop concert smacks of self-importance, it signaled a sense of purpose for Manilow’s concert.

Though the show--which had a successful run on Broadway earlier this year--was essentially the same one that Manilow has given the last couple of times he played Los Angeles, it seemed more focused. And it fulfilled its mandate of showing us the forces that shaped Manilow, including a teen-age preference for jazz over Top 40 that contributed to his not fitting in. In this specific, highly personal context, the rueful “All the Time”--Manilow’s 1976 ballad that is his finest song--was especially poignant.

It would have been nice if the show had featured more intimate, revealing moments like that, but Manilow is first and foremost a showman, so ballads were downplayed in favor of applause-generating shtick.

And what did the newer songs say about where Manilow is going? Encouragingly, the focus on subtle, fluid ballads like “Keep Each Other Warm” and the smoky, jazz-shaded “Brooklyn Blues” showed that Manilow is trying to break the build-to-crescendo mold that characterized most of his ‘70s hits.

The I-made-it-and-you-can-make-it-too nature of the show’s story line carried a whiff of self-congratulation, but Tuesday’s concert (the first of six nights) succeeded on the strength of Manilow’s music and his disarming personality.