Oh My God Please Let This Anecdote Be True

[pot80]

From a thread on ILM:

i've heard that Barry Manilow's a real prick. In the early 80's, for a while after lennon got shot, he really thought he'd be the next "rock star" to take a bullet. My marketing teacher is friends with the guy who did the sound for one of his tours back then and apparently he used to have bulletproof glass shields and stuff

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A Follow-Up:

[pot80]

Yeah, I forgot him too! Or wanted to put it out of my mind. I remember working a Manilow concert in the mid-80s (God, I was starting to really hate that job). The thing was, Barry M. refused to come out for soundcheck and then threatened to cancel the concert altogether. One of the road crew told me that Barry was holed up in his dressing room, awash in a powdery sea of white stuff and screaming that "the next Mark David Chapman could be lurking around any corner!" His road manager convinced him to finally come out.

The road crew had quite a few outrageous stories about B. Manilow. And crew and band alike were united in their hatred of him.

After the show, there was this gaggle of Manilow fans (mostly middle-aged housewives) who had won some sort of radio contest to "meet yer idol Barry!!!" But by that time Barry was back to his coke and paranoia, so he refused to appear. Instead they sent over a life-size cardboard cutout of the man himself. I watched the women (only minorly disappointed, it seemed) kiss and pose for photos with this cardboard likeness. Truly a surreal sight.

The roadie responsible for the cutouts told me that a lot of these women try to steal the thing. He confided to me that they had a couple hundred of them on hand and that he made good "tips" selling them off to the highest bidder - but (nod, wink) "don't tell anyone!" Hahaha.

-- Kjoerup, November 18th, 2003.