Aha! Just as I thought. Plenty of arms up in the air sport fancy suit coats and sequined evening wear. But look again. See the leather jackets? The denim? The studded armbands?
Manilow's fan base is wildly diverse.
The superstar, who got his start accompanying Bette Midler on piano for her burlesque revue in gay bathhouses during the 1970s, appeals to folks of every stripe.
Proof came recently in a much-viewed episode of NBC's Will & Grace (called "Fanilow") in which Manilow was guest star. More proof can be found at his live shows, where everybody boogies to Copacabana and sways to Mandy. Manilow comes to the St. Pete Times Forum on Saturday, part of a rare arena tour.
I recently had the pleasure of chatting with Manilow when he called from his home in Palm Springs, Calif. When I told him the biggest Manilow fan I know is a punk rock mom with plenty of tattoos and piercings, Manilow laughed.
But he wasn't surprised.
"It's always been that way," Manilow said. "My fan base is pretty diverse, although these days it seems to have grown even more so.
"Even in the 1970s, in the beginning, I would look out at the crowd and they would be mixed with all generations.
"Of course, there would be only 40 people out there in the beginning." Manilow laughed. "But all 40 of them - they were always diverse, with older people and younger people."
Manilow thinks people of every background and age like his music and live performances because he's never really been "in."
"It must be the choice of music I love, that I stand for, that I have been trying to get out there all these years," he said. "I'm not trendy. I've never been trendy. I've never wanted to be trendy. I think it's the kiss of death. I've just done what has felt good to me. When you do that, and it works, you get a broad audience."
When I saw Manilow perform in Clearwater in 2002, I enjoyed his clever between-song banter, the jokes, and just his general warmth. It's something you don't get with a lot of younger performers, and I told him I thought that was a shame.
"That's too bad," Manilow says. "When I was first starting out in New York, I played piano for people who did this kind of entertainment. That's what I was raised on, people who bantered with the audience, people who did songs from one end of the spectrum to the other. They didn't just get up there and do their one style and leave, or turn their back on the audience. There was a connection with these strangers out there that these performers always tried to have. I learned that from them. I think that's one of the most important aspects of an entertainer."
I tried to think of any of today's stars who had that kind of quality, like Sammy Davis Jr. or Frank Sinatra, the ability to interpret American standards or tell jokes and chat with the audience. To simply entertain.
Is it a dying art?
The last show I saw that knocked me out in this fashion, a show so filled with humor, song, dance and warmth, in the old-school tradition, was earlier this year starring Manilow's old pal Midler.
"She's the greatest at it. The greatest," Manilow says.
I told Manilow I attended the show with a friend who's in his early 20s. After the show, we wondered who the Manilows and Midlers of the future might be.
"Really, I agree, who is going to do this?" Manilow asked. "You know, when Barbra decided she was going to stop, I called her - Barbra Streisand - and I said, "If you stop, who is going to do this, who is going to introduce these great songs to us?'
"But, you know, we're all so tired of the road."
It has, after all, been decades.
Maybe, I told him, younger entertainers might be inspired to try his kind of classic entertainment for themselves. The humorous young British cabaret-style singer Nellie McKay, for instance, makes my hopes rise.
Manilow agreed.
"There is that element of production that so many of the artists think audiences really want to see with lots of dancers and lots of noise and wigs and stuff like that," Manilow said. "But I tell you, for me, I would much rather somebody stand there and talk to me, make me laugh, make me feel something."
Scores: Songs From Copacabana and Harmony, Manilow's new album combining music from his Broadway musicals, should make fans feel something. However, Manilow promises the live performances on this current arena tour are heavy on the hits.
"I know that kind of crowd really wants to hear hits. I can feel it from the first note of something they recognize - 17,000 people lose their minds," Manilow said and laughed. "And then I go into the first note of something they don't recognize. They indulge me, but I know what they want."
Here's a question for the fellow who writes the songs the whole world sings (Manilow fans know I Write the Songs is one of the few tunes he didn't write): What songs of his own continue to knock his socks off?
"There are actually three that always come to mind," Manilow says. "There's Could It Be Magic, which came from my very first album. It's based on a Chopin prelude and it never fails to amaze me that it still works.
"Another is One Voice, which came to me in a dream. The whole song, the lyric, the melody, I just had to run to a cassette machine and croak it!
"And these days, this Every Single Day song from Harmony, it just kills me."
Manilow estimates he has written 500 to 600 songs.
So, for all the fantastic Copacabanas and Mandys we hear, have there been many stinkers he's ditched over the years?
Manilow laughs. "Oh, there's been enough of those, too."
- Gina Vivinetto can be reached at 727 893-8565 or gina@sptimes.com
PREVIEW
Barry Manilow, 8 p.m. Saturday at the St. Pete Times Forum, 401 Channelside Drive, Tampa. $44.76-$135.50. (813) 287-8844 or (727) 898-2100.
