Hi Everyone,

This month’s MTV is very emotional. During the show, I thank all the folks in the Toronto audience (first time in Toronto, by the way) and say, “You’re one of the warmest audiences I’ve ever played for. It’s been five years since “Mandy”, so thank you.”

Five years since “Mandy”??? Amazing. The show is filled with old hits, brand new hits, jokes, wonderful musical arranging, and most of all a solid two-hours of entertainment. Five years before I had been working in piano bars! How did this happen in only five years? I’ll never know. I’ll just never know.

I give all the credit to you, the audience, that allowed me to learn how to do what I did right on the job in front of everybody.

What songs there are in this concert! The brand new “Barry” album had just been released that morning, so it’s eerie to hear me introduce “I Made It Through The Rain” and to receive silence from the audience since they’d never heard it!

We do one of my favorite songs written by the brilliant Gerard Kenny called “Nickels and Dimes”. A wonderful melody, a great rhythm and a brilliant lyric by Kenny as he tells the story of a struggling performer. Boy, could I ever relate to those lyrics:

How could he know?
How could he know
When he was so young and naïve?
There would be nights
Miracle nights he just wouldn’t believe
He stayed on
And played on

It’s a wonderful show, a wonderful audience and we’d only been out on the road for five years.

Amazing.

Enjoy,

Barry