Barry's barmy army: Meet the most fearsome fan club of all... the Fanilows
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Keyed up: Barry Manilow has legions of ultra-loyal fans
On A freezing night in Docklands, a crocodile of women waits outside a nightclub. They wear long cocktail gowns under sensible coats and have neatly curled hair, like the Queen. Most are elderly, or nearly elderly. Quite a few are in wheelchairs, or on crutches, and one is blind.
It is an odd sight and the young people sauntering past stare politely, as if the women have been beamed down en masse from Bhs. In their gloved hands they hold their £50 tickets to the Barry Manilow International Fan Club (BMIFC) party, London 2008. Because these are the Fanilows - the most devoted fans on Earth.
Barry Manilow hasn't toured Britain for six years. The king of lounge singers has been busy headlining at the Las Vegas Hilton for squillions of pounds, and the British Fanilows have had to save up and go to Vegas to get their fix. But now - at last - he is here.
I approach a group of women from Staffordshire and tell them I am a reporter and I am investigating the 'Manilow Magic' phenomenon. He has sold 76 million records in his 40-year career, although only the Fanilows will admit to buying them. For some reason, I feel slightly like a nurse. They turn to me, pause, and ask the only question that matters to a Fanilow: 'Are you a fan of Barry?'
I don't blink because I am prepared. I am member no. 557141 of the BMIFC. (In the BMIFC logo, the 'I' is replaced with a silhouette of Barry). I can't stand the pop (except Copacabana, of course) but I love the ballads - Mandy, Weekend In New England, I Made It Through The Rain.
All right, I joined only the club when I discovered I was going to be meeting the Fanilows. But I now have my Barrypen, my Barrypicture, and I have been offered a Barrycreditcard (in conjunction with Visa, APR 19.99pc - or 29.99pc if you default).
At home, I dance around my bedroom to Copacabana and I receive mad daily emails from BMIFC Central, describing in insane detail what Barry has been up to.
The night before last Friday's fan club party in East London - by way of research - I went to the Barryconcert at the O2 Arena. At least I think it was Barry. I was so far back I had to take it on trust.
He bounded around like a dancing pin, changed jackets a lot - the last one my bleeding eyeballs could register was parrot yellow - and flirted, rather disgustingly, with the fans.
Tanya Gold (far right) joins the fans of Barry Manilow
'Let's keep your energy up,' he said, 'since your minds are in the gutter anyway.' Then he said, 'that was only foreplay' and then he said, 'You make me feel sexy'. I didn't believe a word of it, but the Fanilows loved it.
They giggled, screamed and waved blue lights. I am sure some collapsed - there must be the occasional deaths at Barry Manilow concerts, it is a statistical certainly. And all the excitement was oddly infectious.
So I can tell the ladies that, yes, I do like Barry Manilow, even if I wouldn't starve to save up to see him in concert, as Fanilows do. They relax and try to tell me why they love Barry so much. But they are not very good at it. Inside they are clearly seething with passion, but the only words that come out are Barryplatitudes such as 'He is wonderful' and 'I love him' and 'His music is beautiful'.
'People make such fun of him,' says one sadly. 'They think he is quiche.' Quiche? You mean - the flan? They think he is a flan? She pouts. 'I mean kitsch.' This is interesting. Why do you think people make fun of Barry Manilow? The question upsets them.
'I don't know,' says another. 'We don't understand it, do we, Deirdre?' Then they tell me they once went to a Barry Manilow party in Camber Sands, dressed as the Seven Dwarves.
Do they think he is coming tonight to the fan club gathering? 'We keep hoping,' they say, 'but we have been let down in the past.'
I'm not sure he would be physically safe here, but apparently, in the real-life presence of Barry, the Fanilows go very quiet, like stunned rabbits.
At last we get into the club, very late, so some of the Fanilows are cross. But not with Barry, for he can do no wrong. He hangs over the party like a benevolent god - or surgically enhanced cloud - and, they tell me repeatedly, he loves them. No, it is the fault of the organisers and if Barry knew, he would weep Barrytears.
On song: Barry Manilow gets the crowd going at the O2 arena
It is widely believed that Barry attends BMIFC conventions undercover, disguised as a woman (his real name, by the way, is Barry Pincus).
When I ask the bouncer exactly why they had to check the name of every Fanilow against a list and see a passport - what is this, the G8 summit? - he shrugs. 'Goody bags,' he says, darkly, which, as explanation for maximum security, seems a bit lame.
Downstairs it is dark and a little poky, and the Fanilows are shocked there aren't chairs for all of them. 'We always had enough seats in Birmingham!' I hear one wail. The lucky ones are squeezed on to banquettes round a dance floor and are tapping their feet. Only Barrymusic is being played tonight. And if Barrymusic isn't being played, it is because recordings of Barryspeak are being played instead.
There is a buffet but no free drinks. Not for the first time, I wonder if the BMIFC party is a bit of a con.
But not for the Fanilows. These respectable women are Barrynutters. All they do is talk about Barry Manilow, the skinny, 65-year-old - at least that's his official age - camp balladeer from New York who sings schmaltz with terrible rhymes.
And they have crossed oceans for him. (Barry would presumably rhyme ocean with potion, or maybe sun lotion). I meet one large fan who has come from Holland, and one small one from Sweden.
'I have to come to London to see Barry because he will not come to me,' she says (Barry last toured Sweden, er, never). She will be at every concert this week, like every Fanilow. Eventually I give up asking them why they love Barry Manilow. In truth, I don't think they actually know.
The star has sold 76 million records in his 40-year career
They sit - or rather stand - and talk about Barry. I listen, and learn that when a Fanilow is ill, she gets hundreds of get-well cards from Fanilows worldwide, even ones she has never met, because Fanilows are a global network, like a weird Barrythemed version of SMERSH, the evil organisation in James Bond.
Everyone I meet here seems to have been a Fanilow for 27 years, which means there was a mass British conversion in 1981, possibly due to some weird alignment of the stars.
At the bar (most Fanilows are drinking sherry - sherry!)I meet a woman who has actually sung with Barry. 'It was 1990 at the London Palladium and he pulled me out of row 17 to sing I Can't Smile Without You,' she says.
What was it like? 'I was up there for five minutes in a complete daze,' she replies. 'It was like there was no one else in the room but Barry and me. When I came off everyone asked me what he smelled like.' What he smelled like? And what does he, er, smell like? 'I don't know,' she says. 'I was more interested in his eyes.'
For those of you who don't receive mad daily emails about Barry, his eyes are blue, his hair is blond - well, it used to be - and he has admitted to having a facelift in 2003 (he apparently left the surgery in a blond wig, which may explain the undercover-in-drag rumours).
Gong: Manilow picks up an Emmy award in 2006
My new friend still has the top she was wearing that night. 'I haven't washed it since,' she says. How amazing that you have actually sung with him, I say.
Her friends immediately produce photographs proving that they, too, have sung with Barry. 'I knew all day he was going to pick me that night,' says one. 'You just know.'
I can see only three men here, lone wisps of testosterone in a sea of women; they are all husbands of Fanilows. One is wearing an amazing glittery jacket, presumably in homage to Barry.
But when I try to talk to them - why are you here? You are a man, but are you a 'Mandy person' or an 'I Write the Songs That Make the Whole World Sing person'? - they just grin blankly and say they love Barry and they think he is wonderful. As if they have been programmed.
No one here can articulate what it is they like about this man. If they could, they probably wouldn't be here. 'Female Fanilows have a saying,' says one of the husbands. 'Marry me and you marry Barry.'
Then, just as I am picking up lots of interesting Barryfacts - did you know his favourite song is Weekend In New England? - I bump into Barryparanoia. I approach a woman who, I have been told, is the chair of the BMIFC, UK branch.
Hello, I say, I am a journalist and I want to know why you love Barry Manilow so much? To her, this is a Barrybomb. 'How did you get in?' she shrieks. 'We don't speak to journalists!'
Why don't you speak to journalists? (Is it because you charge £50 for elderly women to queue for an hour, plus some cold food and a cash bar?)
'Because you are so mean about Barry,' she replies. 'You print lies about him.' Huh?
I tell her I've never been mean about Barry, but I am dragged into a corner and interrogated by the BMIFC high command anyway. It's an odd experience, like being repeatedly hit in the face with a soft toy.
I tell them I am a member of the BMIFC. They look disbelieving. But when I show them my membership card, they realise they are powerless. I paid for my ticket so they can't legally throw me out.
I am allowed to stay, but every time I pass a member of the high command I am glared at, as if I am Cliff Richard. Or worse, Tom Jones.
By now the dance floor is busy with jiving women. It looks like a golden wedding anniversary party where all the men have died. Everyone, I realise - everyone - is dressed like my Auntie Dinah (God rest her soul). And I am sitting on a banquette, holding my notebook full of Fanilow quotes which all say, 'I love Barry and he is wonderful and I have been to 320 concerts!'.
Manilow meets Prince Charles and the late Diana, Princess of Wales, following a concert in 1983. Below, meeting the Queen at the Royal Variety Performance in 1999
I find myself wondering if Manilow Mania is a class thing and whether, when we mock the Fanilows, we are mocking the working class. Or is Barrymania just a Fanilow's guilty response to lust?
And then it descends on me like a sequinned cloud. The Manilow Magic.
I start tapping my feet to Bermuda Triangle. Send In The Clowns draws me in deeper. Then I Write the Songs comes on and suddenly I am on the dance floor, gyrating and mouthing the words with a housewife from Dorking.
Everyone is mouthing the words and writhing. We are together but oddly separate. As if we are all having a private fantasy about Barry and whatever he offers us.
I guess it's a release from some kind of sublimated sexual yearning, which is weird because he isn't exactly masculine.
The music dies and a small American man in black announces that we should all go up to the stage to receive an exclusive lapel Barrypin. Donations to Barry's charitable foundation, he adds, are welcome.
The singer performs during his 100th Manilow: Music and Passion show in Las Vegas in 2005
The invitations to Fanilows to spend money are many, which annoys me, and the magic recedes. I am normal again.
The party is winding down and I still can't stop wondering . . . why? Why are they really here? The closest I get to what seems like a truthful answer is from the woman who says: 'He's safe. He isn't threatening.'
In the queue for the cloakroom - Fanilows do queue an awful lot - I bump into the Staffordshire gaggle again and I put it to them.
This isn't really about Barry Manilow, is it? How can it be? It's about you, isn't it? About friendship? About bonding? About women?
As one, they pout. 'No,' they say, 'it's all about Barry because if it wasn't for Barry we wouldn't be . . .' and they pause and smile wistfully. 'We wouldn't be friends.'
And they clutch their Barrypins and disappear.
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