- Well, congrats on the Vegas show.
I know a lot of artists, me included,
we just love performing and we were all just,
we had to stop for like a year or two. Right?
So how is it to back to be?
- I thought it would be different, but I mean,
it was like these 18 months just disappeared
and we were back on the stage
and it looked, it felt pretty much the same as usual.
There was one extra element on these last couple of shows
that we did, that I'd never felt before.
It felt,
yeah they were applauding.
Yeah, we were all having a good time,
but there was something else.
It felt like the audience was grateful to be in this room
and not have to worry about all the crap
that we've been dealing with.
- [Kelly] Yeah.
- They were laughing and singing and happy.
And I felt like everybody was just very grateful.
They were applauding me,
but they were applauding themselves.
- The moment. No, we took it for granted a little.
I was just having this conversation yesterday with someone
because I literally,
I mean shows started happening
and my friends, we have been to four.
So we're going to one next week.
Like, I get drunk off the energy of it.
Like, you know what I'm saying?
You're like, I miss it.
I didn't know that I miss,
I don't even really miss performing as much as I do watching
and like being a part of the show in that way.
That's so amazing. And it's awesome to listen to music,
but to feel it,
- Yes.
- and to be in a room filled with people that you would
probably never find yourself
in the same room with in any other circumstance
- So it's not having to worry about everything else
that we've been worrying about 18 months.
- [Kelly] Escapism. Yeah.
- It just disappeared for 90 minutes
and I was grateful I could do it, but it really,
they were grateful, I was grateful.
It was a great couple of nights.
- Yeah. Yeah. I love that.
I love seeing shows.
You've also got your own musical, right?
I think that's amazing.
And it's got to sound incredible.
You're such a great pianist and musician and writer.
- Yeah. this is the biggest
and the most important thing to me.
Right now, it's a musical called "Harmony"
and it opens in New York,
down at the Yiddish Theater
and the little hope it goes from there to Broadway.
It's called "Harmony."
And it opens in April,
this coming year and previews start before that,
and you should check this one out.
It's a real good one.
- It takes a while for all these projects to develop.
So how long have you been working on this?
- [Barry] 20 years.
- 20 years? Wow.
- [Audience] Wow.
- Yeah. Yeah, but it's worth it.
- [Kelly] Oh, my gosh.
- You really need to check this one out.
- Oh, that's amazing.
So what's "Harmony?" What is it about?
Like, what's the gist.
- It's about a singing group
that was very, very big in the 1920s in Germany.
A few of them were Jews and a few of them were not,
and their story.
The reason we don't know who they are,
they were called the Comedian Harmonists,
very talented, very talented, tremendously popular.
And we don't know about them
because everything they did was destroyed.
- Oh, so this is based off of something real.
I didn't get that.
- A real story.
It's a real story and it's very compelling
and I'm very proud of the score.
And my partner, Bruce Sussman,
wrote the lyrics and the book.
And it's really deep and funny, because they were funny,
but you really should check this one out.
- Wow. I can't wait to see that.
That was a great sell by the way.
(Barry laughing)
I'm like, wow!
I'm going to get you to sell my stuff. Like, I'm in.
And that's the thing too,
like, New York starting to come back.
I miss shows so much.
We opened this whole show in New York this year.
- [Barry] I know it's rough.
- Oh, man. But it's such a city
that feels ghost-like without theater.
- You know, Bruce told me when we were in the middle of it,
times square was empty.
All the streets that had the theaters on it, empty.
Like, you know, newspapers just floating around
like some something out of a science fiction.
- [Kelly] Like a movie, yeah.
- Yeah. It was rough.
- Oh, well you have new fans on TikTok as well,
which I love,
because this lip sync video of "Mandy" went viral.
Here it is, you've got to see it.
- [Barry] Did you see it?
♪ I see a memory ♪
♪ I never realized ♪
♪ How happy you made me ♪
♪ Oh, Mandy ♪
♪ Well, you came and you gave without taking ♪
- Oh, my God. He's adorable.
So what did you think when you saw that?
- Well, I was surprised.
I wondered how did he find "Mandy" to lip-sync to.
He's so young.
- Spotify is a beautiful thing.
I feel like we find things
like on all these streaming services now,
like even my kids are starting to listen to music.
They're like, "oh, I love this new song."
I'm like, "that ain't new, that's from the '80s."
- You should show them "Copacabana."
They would love "Copacabana."
- I know, I'm just saying they find this music
and they think it's new. Yeah.
- I wonder how he found the.
- Backstory. We need the backstory.
Well, the video inspired thousands of responses
like this one.
♪ I see a memory ♪
♪ I never realized ♪
♪ How happy you made me ♪
♪ Oh, Mandy ♪
♪ Well, you came and you gave without taking ♪
(Kelly laughing)
- Wait, wait, wait.
And this one.
♪ I see a memory ♪
♪ I never realized ♪
♪ How happy you made me ♪
♪ Oh, Mandy ♪
♪ Well, you came and you gave without taking ♪
(laughing)
- So have you heard from that kid?
Have you heard from who made the first video?
- Oh, no. No, I haven't.
- Oh my God. It's so great.
And it's so random,
which is the most amazing part and the reactions.
Anyway, well we've reached out to him
and he's actually in our audience.
So say hello to William White!
(audience cheering)
There he is.
He's in the middle screen.
- Yeah.
- [Kelly] Oh, my God. Well, meet Barry Manilow!
- [Barry] Hi. Hi.
- Hi, Barry.
- How did you find the song?
- Yeah, it was my dad. He showed me.
He's a huge fan, so he's pretty jealous
that I'm on here right now,
but his buddies love it.
So we go for walks and he showed me some old music
and then I found "Mandy",
and I was like, "oh, this is like perfect for the ladies."
Like, it's a heartthrob music.
I was like, all right.
So I went home and after work, I was landscaping,
and went home and started making "Mandy" videos.
And from there it just blew up,
like over one weekend I hit like 1.8 million followers.
- That's amazing.
- Talk about getting laid from music.
- I know. I'm just saying, that song lasts.
- [Barry] You must have scored.
- Some longevity with that song.