Barbara Streisand Tribute

Saturday night, June 24th, Frank and I went to a tribute concert for Barbra Streisand at the Firehouse Arts Center in Pleasanton, the next town over. The performer had a powerful voice and did justice to the singing style of Streisand. We were initially seated in the second row from the front, Row B, but we were on the aisle by the speakers. It was painfully loud and we moved to the middle of Row H, two from the back, and it was much better the second half.

When I bought the tickets, I thought I'd be more familiar with the songs made popular by Barbra Streisand than I apparently was. A few days after the show I looked up The Essential Barbra Streisand album on iTunes and found this list of songs. The ones I recognized (and remembered) that night were Second Hand Rose, People, Don't Rain On My Parade, You Don't Bring Me Flowers, What Are You Doing the Rest of Your Life?, The Way We Were. The artist Kelly Brandeburg sang some songs from Barbra's early vaudeville and nightclub type performances, that were unfamiliar to Frank and me. She also talked a bit about Streisand's rise to stardom. The first act Brandeburg was dressed in black - almost to evoke a cabaret mood. She came out after intermission in a silver sequined flashy dress that was the ultimate in a sparkly display, practically screaming "STAR!". Frank leaned over and whispered to me, "Why don't you get a dress like that?"

We enjoyed the show enough that it was a nice switch from struggling with the TV remote on a Saturday night trying to find a show to watch, figuring out which streaming service carried it, and attempting to remember if we had already seen it or were in the middle of it. We also like the ambience of the artsy local theatre. We were recently there on May 14th with Alex to see The Song of the Nightingale (post for 5/23/2023). That blog post has more internal photos of the theatre. It sure is convenient and refreshing to have such a unique and special theatre experience so close to home. We were glad we'd gotten off our duffs to reap the benefit of an entertaining night out.