This month’s MTV is a video of a tour that was very important in my concert life.

We had just finished a tour the Copacabana Tour and Garry came to me and said, “We need to do a tour that is special. We need to put you back on the map. Back where the public and the business people talk about you”.

He said, “Let’s not worry about the cost. Create a show that knocks their socks off.”

So after looking around for someone to help me create this show, we landed on Joe Gannon, who had been recognized for his work with “Alice Cooper”.

When I met with him, I met a guy who was an eccentric, fast talking, guy with a million ideas. When he left the meeting, I told Garry that I didn’t think I could work with this mad man.

Garry understood and kind of felt the same way, but he said let’s give him a try.
I’m sure glad we did.

Joe Gannon gave me the most inventive, insane, terrifying show I’d ever done.

“How about we fly you in from the back of the house? No? How about you rising up on an elevator from beneath the stage playing the piano? No? How about we use a marching band to accompany you for “Copacabana”?
“Joe,” I said. “We can’t travel with a marching band.”
He said, “Of course not. They would be on a 3-D screen behind the band!”

You get the idea.

I had to turn down most of his wild ideas, but what we did use was brilliant and thrilling for me and for the audiences.

He told me to start the show by myself. “You’re a piano player! Just play the piano by yourself.”, he told me.

I started the show playing the “Overture” on piano all by myself. The “Overture” would segue to “Sweet Life” and “It’s A Long Way Up”. I loved doing that every night.

He split the band into two sections which left the middle of the stage to do sketches and performances.

He put the band on three levels making them look enormous and very impressive.

He had me give a video of the “Can’t Smile Without You” duet that I would give to the partner I picked from the audience.

He created a way of using 60 slide projectors! Each projector had 80 slides!

The slide machines were all connected to each other and at the press of a button, all the slides would change at once. The entire back screen could be one large picture or 30 small pictures. It was mesmerizing.

This was long before video technology and no one could figure out how we created these gorgeous panoramas.

Every day the tech crew would have to change all the projector bulbs!

And then there was the “Magic Screen”. Near the end of Act I, Debra, Dana, Vanessa and me would “jump” onto a screen looking like we were floating on the screen!

This month’s video is the beginning of the tour. Of course, we changed things as the months went by, but this is the first time we performed the Joe Gannon production.

Oh, and then there was the “Hits Medley” which lasted 20 minutes! It brought the house down night after night.

We toured with this show for a few years and Garry was right. This touring show got me the greatest reviews of my career. Audiences, night after night walked out telling all their friends the sentence that every performer prays for:
“You gotta’ see this!”.

Enjoy!
Barry