You know that one great picture you have of yourself? The one where you look
young and healthy and your hair is perfect and the camera angle makes you look taller, thinner, smarter? It's the one you use anytime you're asked to supply a picture. If someone sees you after they've seen that picture, they recognize you, but they know, right away, that you used that special picture, and that in real life you look like the older, homelier cousin to that other self.
Well, Steve Lawrence and Eydie (yes, she really spells it that way) are using their perfect picture for their current tour, appropriately title "We're Still Here". Steve & Eydie look great and toned and well, young (ish), but they aren't playing by the rules. After five or six years, it's time to retire the photo. It's only fair.
Or else, you have to perform the proud walk of shame, ambling on stage with a big grin, even though you know the entire audience is whispering and gasping.
His hair looks bad.
She got fat.
What is she wearing?
The last comment, of course, isn't based on using on any old photos.
Eydie went onstage in a white shawl ringed with fuschia raccoon tails.
I guess that's a good way to make people forget about your big blly - or the big hair to match.Yes, Steve & Eydie are still on tour (mostly in Vegas, where they live, Arizona, the
occasional trip to Long Island, and for a longer five night stint in Palm Desert, California). In Palm Desert, they performed the same show they have been for some time, but the mostly white haired crowd ate it up. So did the smattering of gay couples, who also appreciated the corny patter, the old songs, and the tight, full orchestra.
The show begins with a twenty minute montage of video clips back in the day. Steve at 16, winning an Arthur Godfrey talent contest. Eydie being introduced by Jerry Lewis. What's My Line, The Carol Burnett Show, Sammy Davis, Jr., a clip of Reagan being serenaded (which elicited
sudden applause from the scary right wingers). After all the clips, you'd think it would be hard to live up to their own histories, but amazingly the duo sounds great. Steve's voice is still strong, and Eydie sounds as good as she ever did, which means she can still carry a tune, even if she ends up screeching at times.
The show is a throwback to a different era in entertainment, with plenty of blue jokes - Viagra, sexual inadequacy - as well as pre-written patter that is so preconceived it should elicit yawns, but, because of the professional and wholehearted delivery, still brings out big laugs from the sold out crowds.Revolutionary, this ain't. But, old fashioned in the best way, Steve & Eydie are consummate performers, who continue to do what they do best.