Liza with a Z

Sunday night was the Liza Minnelli concert – you’ll have to forgive me for waiting until today to post about it, because a few post-concert drinks meant that I wasn’t really feeling up to coherent sentences yesterday.

The concert was excellent and horrifying all at once. You could tell that she is (or was) a proper entertainer of 1950’s influence. I guess with Judy Garland as a mother you couldn’t help but be influenced by that era.

The show was excellent because even at 63 years of age, Liza can still perform and can still entertain a crowd. But it was horrifying because at 63 years of age, the inability to show even the faintest wrinkle on your face is just creepy.

In the opening numbers, I was horrified by the skeletor-like grin on her face - a woman shouldn’t be able to smile and show all of her teeth without creating even a few tiny wrinkles. Then after a song or two, Liza seemed incredibly breathless and was panting heavily. I became increasingly paranoid that she was going to keel over on stage. I was convinced that I had come to the show where Liza was going to drop dead on stage, and while that would have been memorable, it’s not something that I wanted to happen.

I guess it was a weird concert for me because her age, illnesses and show biz lifestyle have taken their toll, and I think a lot of what people enjoyed about the show is what they remember of Liza at her peak. For someone who hasn’t followed her career right through, it was more like an echo of something better. A lot of her high notes were lost and her lisp a lot more pronounced than I ever recall it. But she still knows how to keep a crowd entertained, and in amongst it all there were a few fantastic moments – in particular when she sang ‘New York, New York’ to a standing ovation.

It was a chance that I’ll never have again, so I’m glad that I went along. Sometimes it’s nice to go to the sorts of things that you wouldn’t have gone to on your own.


In unrelated news, entries for the Photo5 comp are due by the end of the week, so I might be a little absent this week as I rush around taking last minute shots. I've only finished 2 out of the 5 briefs so far, so I have quite a bit to do still. Wish me luck!