By Mauricio Segura July 20, 2025
Photo: Mauricio Segura
Sacramento showed up early on a hot July evening, purple lights from DOCO ricocheting off the glassy shell of Golden 1 Center, for what Barry Manilow promised would be the last time he would bring an arena show to the city. Inside, the seats filled with multi-generational fans, parents who knew every modulation and kids who knew every chorus, because July 19, 2025 wasn’t just another tour stop; it was a page being turned in pop history. The arena’s own listing had been blunt about it: one night, doors at six, Barry at seven (Though he didn't hit the stage until 7:56pm, but no one minded), and that was that.
He treated the night like a valedictory address set to a backbeat. The band hit “It’s a Miracle” with the shiny snap of a show opener, and from there he strung together a run of comfort-food hits, “Somewhere in the Night,” “Looks Like We Made It,” “Daybreak,” and “This One’s for You.” It felt less like a setlist and more like muscle memory for the room. Those titles track closely with how he has been sequencing this farewell, including the Bay Area dates bracketing Sacramento; the crowd sang the refrains as confidently as the band played the tags.
Manilow at 81 does not sing like a relic; he sings like a storyteller who knows exactly where the drama lives in his catalog. Between songs he tucked in pieces of origin story, the Brooklyn kid who wrote jingles before he wrote chart toppers, the hustling arranger who backed Bette Midler before stepping out on his own. If you have caught his New York or Vegas gigs, you know the anecdotes; hearing them in an NBA arena on a summer Saturday somehow made them warmer, like postcards read aloud. And yes, the jingle ads really were his classroom, “Like a good neighbor, State Farm is There”, "Get a Bucket of Chicken, finger lickin' good", "I am stuck on a band aid brand cause Band-Aid's stuck on me", "You deserve a Break Today at MacDonalds)", and the rest. I was kind of hoping for his famous "Very Strange Medley" which features his jingle hits, but it was left out of the set list.
Midway through, he and his singers pulled off the tour’s slyest flex: a crisp a cappella riff on the “William Tell Overture,” essentially turning a Lone Ranger wink into four-part harmony callisthenics. It has been a crowd-pleaser across the July leg, and Sacramento ate it up, proof that Manilow’s showmanship is not just about big choruses, it is also about craft.
What made the night feel different from a greatest-hits parade was the sense of inventory, of a career being held up to the lights one last time on the road. He has sold more than 85 million records, and he remains Billboard’s titan of adult-contemporary airplay. The math explains why so many songs feel like part of America’s shared memory. In the house, you could feel the nostalgic tug without the syrup. Ballads such as “Even Now” did not wallow; they hovered, clear and unfussy, and then moved aside for the uptempo sparkle.
And then came the communal business. “Can’t Smile Without You” has always been a built-in sing-along, and on this farewell it functions like a vow renewal between star and audience. Entire sections stood without being asked, a thousand-voice chorus locking onto the whistle and the lilt. If arena concerts issue diplomas, Sacramento earned theirs on that one. The momentum carried into the last stretch, where, true to this tour’s pattern, the Technicolor of “Copacabana” and the curtain-call sincerity of “I Write the Songs” sent everyone out humming. Even a farewell can feel buoyant when the hooks are this indestructible.
Context matters too. Manilow did not just pop into town; this July run was the capstone to a two-month, two-leg farewell that started in late May in Pittsburgh and wound west for a final sequence of Northern California dates: Oakland on July 18, Sacramento on July 19, and San Jose as the last bow on July 20. Framed that way, Sacramento became the hinge, the second-to-last city, the last chance for this arena and this audience to trade energy. The mood matched the moment: grateful, loud, and just sentimental enough.
Of course, “farewell” here means farewell to touring, not to Barry. He has been frank about that, and thankfully so. The Westgate Las Vegas residency that has already broken records, where he famously surpassed Elvis’s count at the International Theater, is not winding down. In fact, it is expanding, with 2026 dates already on the books. Translation: if you missed this Sacramento goodbye, you can still catch the guy where the neon never blinks.
History will sort the superlatives, but the legacy is not hard to spot from a seat in Golden 1 Center: a songwriter who smuggled Broadway’s heart into pop radio, a bandleader who never lost his sense of theater, and a performer who treats sing-alongs like community service. The tour’s very name, The Last Concerts, telegraphed closure, and this stop delivered it without mourning. When the houselights rose, you could feel the city exhale, the kind of satisfied silence that follows a story well told. If this was goodbye to the road, it was also a reminder that some artists do not really leave; they just set up a new address. See you in Vegas.
Setlist:
- It's a Miracle(with snippet of "Dance To The Music")
- I'm Your Man
- Somewhere in the Night
- Daybreak
- Looks Like We Made It
- Can't Smile Without You
- This One's for You
- Bandstand Boogie(Les Elgart & His Orchestra cover)
- Even Now
- Guillaume Tell Ouverture(Gioachino Rossini cover)
- All the Time
- Jump Shout Boogie
- Dancing in the Aisles / Dancing in the Street / Let's Hang On
- Weekend in New England
- Could It Be Magic (Began playing his version then segued to a dance-inspired version from Donna Summer's cover)
- I Made It Through the Rain
- Mandy / Could It Be Magic (Reprise)
- I Write the Songs(Bruce Johnston cover)
- Encore: Copacabana (at the Copa) / It's a Miracle
More Information: Barry Manilow in Vegas
Photos: Mauricio Segura
