Babs the Fab

Had the most wonderful experience on Friday night - went to see Barbra Streisand at the United Center in Chicago. It's a huge sports arena that seats about 20,000 and our seats were up on the side but very close to the stage. No need to watch the big screens.

It was wonderful.

I've always been a fan of the voice, if not the woman. (By that I mean that she comes across as a nice enough person but you don't really know a celeb do you?) Actually, she came across as a very nice person - funny, honest, and self-deprecating; her show has a lot of chat with the audience, making that huge stadium feel like an intimate night club.

The voice sounds lightly lower that yesteryear, but is still as remarkable, restrained and just not shouty, as it ever was.

She is currently touring with Il Volo, a trio of lovely young Italian boys/men. Honestly, they're barely old enough to have proper male voices let alone magnificent ones. She also played quite a few numbers with the brilliant trumpeter Chris Botti and the beautiful violinist Caroline Campbell was also featured.

The highlight for many of us however, was Jason, her son. Babs showed us a photo montage he had put together for her 70th birthday, and then pointed out the beautiful singing in the sound track - Jason. Then she brought him out and they sang some very touching songs together. Like buddah!

Anyway, it was a nice surprise for my mother, even though the Ball & Chain had done his level best to execute an early reveal in the previous few days. (But that's a whole nuther blog post.)