Brian Boitano Skating Spectacular with Barry Manilow

[Tonichelle]

One funny thing -- at intermission, instead of the tiny zamboni coming out to resurface, all of a sudden there were 3-4 people out there with snow shovels "shaving" the top of the ice, then they attached a hose to one of the field spiggots and sprayed the ice and then squeegied the water around to smooth it out. The Zamboni was sitting off to the side and was eventually pushed away -- I asked one of the people who were out on the ice what was going on, and they said the zamboni broke down and this was the only way they had to resurface the ice! I've never seen it done that way, and it wasn't perfect, but it did do the job and the skaters handled it like pros. It was pretty funny to watch.

that's so cool! poor Zamboni though!!!! (I cheer on the zamboni at skating events, I'm a big dork LOL)

 

[Teenes]

my friends opted for the stadium seats and they said it was pretty dark and you couldn't see much -- the big screen was good, but so elongated that it cut off the skaters' heads when it zoomed in.

Yeah, my friends as well. I had a press pass so I was standing on the field, but my friends were up in the center section of the stands. Apparently, not only was it dark and the ice far away, but the boom camera was stationed smack in the middle of the end facing the audience, and blocked their view quite frequently. The show, IMO, was very obviously intended for TV and those who spent a lot for the field seats - even the choreography seemed to be going away from the ends at times, and sometimes the skaters almost forgot to bow to the end. One of my friends said she felt quite detached from the show. I felt bad for those up in the stadium seats.

Hope Teenes doesn't mind me using her review as a guide so I don't have to do my own complete one -- she's already done a great job.

Sure - you added more than I had in my original review .

(although I never really feel anyone "owns" a piece of music and figure that most of the time you could go back and find a skater who had used something my favorite was well-known for way before he/she did -- shrug).

Oh I don't think Kurt owns the music. I'm just used to him skating to it (and I've seen "Play That Funky Music" rather a lot, and "Time in a Bottle" is one of my absolute favorite programs of his) so it was just surprising and required some getting used to to see PTFM used in the opening number. Dorothy's number required less adjustment for me b/c her interpretation wasn't all that different (though more about deep edges and flowy arm movements while Kurt's had more variety of footwork).

(Oh and Toni - I still love Kurt's version if TIAB the best, but Dorothy's shouldn't be too hard to watch because her edges really are just wonderful and her interpretation was fairly similar to Kurt's (the music kind of lends itself to that interpretation) even if her choreography wasn't the same)

It's been awhile since I've seen them, so it was easy to enjoy them, moreso because my guest at the show had never seen them (and hadn't seen much skating ever) and thoroughly enjoyed them.

It probably helps not to have seen them much to really enjoy them. I never went to COI and I don't often watch Brian's show so I rarely get the chance to see them. And my friends, most of whom were only casual skating fans, really hadn't seen them. So we could all ooh and ahh without realizing they'd done those numbers before or had taken anything out. I had noticed the wobbliness, though. Made for some scary moments!

David was a lot of fun and very charming -- and did a good job with his fairly lengthy solo in the first part of the finale -- landed a double axel and did a pretty good death drop along with the spread eagle, and was quite a "character" in his other little bits to lead into the acrobats, Viktor's first number, etc.

David's got some great moves and it's always nice getting to see him pull them out. Like you said - his death drop was great as well, and he's got a pretty solid 2-axel. I was realizing as I was going through my photos that he used a lot of skills from past SOI group numbers in his bits. Skating with the push broom was something he probably got a lot of practice with "Work 'n Time" and the baseball number probably exercised skills he picked up during the "Swing" number last year.

Brian's done this in the past (brought in a pair guy to skate without his partner -- John Zimmerman, Andre Khvalko) and usually had a bit more for them to do, but with everything that was going on with having this outdoors, I thought he did pretty well getting David involved and letting him show off his own skills. A lot of fun.

The show felt kind of short this year - including a 15 minute intermission and not starting on time, as usual, it was over in less than 2 hours. Maybe there was less room for them to stick David in between?

The guys (particularly Brian) were all laughing throughout and having a great time,

Very true. At the end of the number, I heard some fairly loud and extremely amused sounding male laughter and couldn't pinpoint it at first until I realized it was coming from the heap of guys lying on the ice about 20 feet away from me .

The cross-dressing groundsweeper was (I thought) a representation of Morgana -- anyone remember the buxom woman who got famous for a year or two by jumping out of the stands at various baseball games and kissing players.

Ah I don't follow baseball so I had no context for this. I thought he was funny, anyway.

Whatever, I enjoyed it, and it certainly was appropriate in the ballpark (the crowd didn't even need the scoreboard to flash the words of the song -- when it started playing, they started singing).

Oh most certainly. I realized after my initial "oh not another baseball number!" reaction that duh..of course they have to do a baseball number, they're in a baseball park! Their jerseys were quite kickass.

I havne't seen Viktor for a few years, and didn't like some of the stuff I had seen lately, but I thought he was excellent in this show. The cowboy number "A Cowboy's Work is Never Done") was outstanding -- cute without being cutesy -- and he did a slew of double axels in both numbers -- I think he tried just the one triple toe, but overall, did a lot of jumps and had lots of content with other things.

He also did an extended footwork bit right around the end of the ice, very much towards the stadium seats, which I thought was great. Great showman - doesn't neglect any part of his audience!

I appreciated that the crowd responded very warmly to him when he first came out in the opening (Brian was first to skate in the opening and, of course, got a huge cheer, but the audience, although it didn't seem to be a particularly skate-centric one, obviously recognized and appreciated Viktor, too) and I really appreciated his skating!

Same here. They seemed to react most to Brian, Dorothy, and Viktor. And of course, Barry Manilow...

I admit to being a big baffled by their first humber -- the music sounded like some sort of mexican/latin type music (maybe Italian, I don't know), but they were in western-type garb and had bandana masks with bags of money to start with, with a definite "heist" theme to the program. It was very well done and enjoyable, I just didn't understand the reason for the theme. Maybe if I knew what the music was (could it have been from a 70's movie I should recognize?) I'd have a better idea of the why.

Yeah it must have something to do with the music. I also didn't quite get why it went all slo-mo in the middle - ie, did they slow the music down, or was that just part of the music? It was a kind of goofy heist with the robbers fighting with each other.

Their second number was to Manilow singing "Even Now," and, as Teenes said, it was lovely. They redid a throw double axel that she two-footed, but both their numbers were great.

The retake was lovely.

Steve actually tried a bunch of triples, I think -- I think he doubled a toe loop in his first number (to Barry singing ... something-or-other, I can't remember what, but I think it was off his 70s CD, not his greatest hits.

"It Never Rains in Southern California". Which I thought was a funny choice sine we were in Northern California and it'd rained the day before and the day after the show =).

I absolutely loved both these programs -- the choreography in the first one was very interesting and a bit different for Brian, but I thought it worked very well.

I was wondering. I thought it looked different for him - a lot more turns and tricky moves than I'm used to seeing from him - but I figured since I don't actually see him that many times a year, I just hadn't seen the full range of stuff he's done. In some ways he seems to be taking a page out of the eligibles' book, I thought, in adding spin variations, 3-jump combos, more turns and changes of direction in his skating, etc... He did a really nifty ina bauer into besti squat move I thought was neat.

I would like to see it on a bigger ice surface, but this one worked well enough and he could manage triple toe and salchow. And I loved the costume (soft light blue jeans and a long-sleeved shirt with blues graduating up into white).

Yeah it was a great costume.

And the second number was beautiful -- a lot of his "signature" moves, a couple of triples, combined with long, sweeping moves (not enough room to completely "sweep," but still beautiful) and the video montage with pictures of his dad was lovely. From where I sat, he appeared to be really trying to "hold it together" before the program began, and he did it very well.

Yeah that number was obviously very special to him, and he did a lovely job with it. I do have to mention that he had a black outfit on during dress rehearsals for that number and I am very grateful he decided to wear the closing number costume (a beautiful deep red costume) instead. Much easier for my camera to focus on .

He was kinda funny in retakes, because he wanted to get that triple-double-double in, although there'd been nothing wrong with the triple-double other than that he ran out of space to do the third jump.

He did the 3-2-2 towards the corner I was standing at with my camera. That's one of the reasons I was particularly impressed with it, b/c if he ran out of room, he would have been on top of me and it was kind of exciting watching him jump his way towards me .

THEN he insisted on re-doing the double axel, too, although there'd really been nothing wrong with it -- guess he was dissatisfied with the slightly less-than-smooth landing and wanted it to be perfect for dad!

Yeah I think there was a slight stumble, and I'm guessing as long as he was out there.. =)

(the retakes were basically to add a revolution here and there -- Dorothy, Viktor and Elena had some two-foots to re-do -- and most of that could be attributed to the small surface -- and everyone hit their retakes first try completely flawlessly).

I was very impressed by Viktor's retake of his "How Do You Mend a Broken Heart" number - he went into each jump with a lot of determination and confidence and landed each one bang on. No squeaked-by landings, it was just bam, bam, bam...perfect.

Still working on photos. And apparently procrastinating by coming here =).

 

[Tonichelle]

(Oh and Toni - I still love Kurt's version if TIAB the best, but Dorothy's shouldn't be too hard to watch because her edges really are just wonderful and her interpretation was fairly similar to Kurt's (the music kind of lends itself to that interpretation) even if her choreography wasn't the same)

Throwing maturity out the window I still don't care... Dorothy should not touch music Kurt's used... any skater for that matter

lol... seriously I'm sure she did well... I just don't care too much for her skating... not sure why... she's always left me cold...

 

[iluvtodd]

Thanks, mememe for your detailed review, and Tina for more of your insightful comments. :agree:

 

[fairly4]

barry manilow pushed on entertainment tonight

Sorry this is late, but I was watching Entertainment Tonight on Friday and they showed a few clips of the show. It had Barry Manilow on and Brian Boitano. They both made comments of how Dorothy Hamill is timeless (or something to that effect). It showed Dorothy skating.
They was making sure everyone knew the date and time the show would be on in the U.S. which is nice.

 

[discoduck]

I'm very late with this but I needed to come down off my cloud before I posted. This show was a dream come true for me since it had three of my favorite things. My first skating idol, Dorothy Hamill, my favorite skater of all time, Brian Boitano and my favorite musician Barry Manilow. Add that to the fact that it was in a city I had always wanted to visit and it doesn't get much better than that. Mr. Duck gave this to me for Christmas and honestly it was perfect.

I'm not going to write a detailed review but I'll talk about my personal highlights. Dorothy was amazing. Say what you will, she's gorgeous, her edges are to die for and it was obvious that she loves skating. Her number to Weekend In New England was my favorite although Time In A Bottle was great as well. Especially when put in the context of her age and her career, it was perfect for her.

Petrenko was fun as always, I enjoyed both his numbers. Steven was pretty and who cares if he isn't the best at triples. I'll admit that I don't watch him for his technique. Dave was a hoot as the transition piece and in the retakes. I also enjoyed his solo skating at the beginning of the finale. He has a very good spread eagle and his jumps were on but he did look odd out there without Jamie.

Brian...what can I say? Imagine was incredible and when he did I Write The Songs with Barry singing, I nearly lost it. Especially since he dedicated it to his father. It was very touching and the fact that the last little bit was just Brian doing spread eagles while Barry sang the chorus. I may or not have been biting my lips to keep from squealing. Yes I was a total fangirl at that moment and I'm not ashamed to admit it.

I was on the field just three seats down from where the skaters came on the ice and it was fantastic! They all seemed to be having a great time and Barry was obviously enjoying himself too. There were a couple of times when he was watching the skaters and nearly forgot lyrics which was funny. My favorite moment that won't be on TV was at the end when they were all exiting the ice after the finale. Dorothy was behind Brian and she reached out and pinched his butt on both cheeks. Go Dorothy!!

All in all, it was incredible and I am so lucky that I got to be there!

 

[isk82]

Brian...what can I say? Imagine was incredible and when he did I Write The Songs with Barry singing, I nearly lost it. Especially since he dedicated it to his father. It was very touching and the fact that the last little bit was just Brian doing spread eagles while Barry sang the chorus. I may or not have been biting my lips to keep from squealing. Yes I was a total fangirl at that moment and I'm not ashamed to admit it.

Oh geez, I can see I"m going to be crying my eyes out during this show! Thanks everyone for the great reviews!!

I have to say that Dorothy doesn't need to jump to be beautiful to watch. She is the one all little girls should look to for perfect body positions and true edges. It doesn't have to be jumps and flash to be great. Just watching her stroke across the ice is amazing.

 

[Teenes]

Photo time!

The show lighting was fairly cruddy, and I stationed myself at a corner of the rink for the show which, in retrospect, probably wasn't the best location (the lights pointing out from the stage were not good for my camera). So these definitely aren't my best photos. Some of the dress rehearsal photos are better because I was at center ice for those (even though they had even less lighting at dress), some of my show photos are better b/c of the lighting. So, I put both dress rehearsal and show photos up. You may notice Brian has a different costume on for his second number in the show.

Dress Rehearsal

Show

It airs Dec. 22, 2007 from 4-6PM EST on NBC, and then repeats on the Style Network Dec. 23 from 10am-noon, and Dec. 28 from 5-7PM.

 

[sillylionlove]

Wow thanks for all the great reviews and the photos. Sounds like a good show.

 

[Tonichelle]

SO GLAD to hear you had a GREAT TIME!!!! Mr. Duck did well for Christmas

 

[discoduck]

SO GLAD to hear you had a GREAT TIME!!!! Mr. Duck did well for Christmas

Yes he did! I don't have to sell him to the gypsies now.

 

[Tonichelle]

that's good to hear (I was going to try and come up with a funny line involving Tanith and Ben referring to their Gypsy Free Dance in 05, but I couldn't quite find the right snark *sigh*)

 

[Teenes]

I realize it's been a week and a half, but I finally finished my long review of Brian's show. It's here, for anyone who's interested:
http://www.kurtfiles.com/reviews/boitano07.php

 

[discoduck]

I realize it's been a week and a half, but I finally finished my long review of Brian's show. It's here, for anyone who's interested:
http://www.kurtfiles.com/reviews/boitano07.php

I'm looking forward to reading it when I get home! For some reason the filter at work won't let me access your site.