The two women in front of us are not happy. It's odd because they have been hooting adoring slogans like "Yeah, baby" or "You want me, don't you?" throughout most of crooner Engelbert Humperdinck's gig.
But the pair are dumbstruck as he sings Totally Amazing, co-written by his daughter. The
song is clearly not amazing. It is a shocker, not even fit for a car commercial. The two women politely applaud.
Humperdinck's singing the song because its on his new DVD, which he has been annoyingly over-promoting. "I would urge you to buy it, because I'm broke," he jokes.
It's a shame because, despite Totally Amazing and the following song about fallen war vets, the Humpster is in fine, ravishing form. He may have turned 70 last month but you wouldn't know it.
Just ask Sandra from Whitianga who goes up on stage (she needed no coaxing, by the way), sits on a chair, and is straddled by Humpy who sings sweet nothings in her ear.
He starts off slow, warming up his voice, but as the concert goes on he strolls powerfully through hits such as Release Me, Ten Guitars, My Way, and Spanish Eyes. At times he holds the microphone at waist level and loses no oomph.
The joke interludes are there, taking in everything from Elvis impressions (stand with your legs apart, let them breathe), to his plastic surgery mates in California. (They're his old friends with new faces.)
These jokes are delivered well and you only half wonder how many times he has told that one.
He's a pro, but then again he should be after recording 76 albums and first making the big time with Release Me, in the mid 60s.
Tonight that song is okay, but Ten Guitars, the B-side to that single, is the highlight.
He whips through Ten Guitars then sits back, while the band plays it again, as the crowd sing the whole thing. Where else in the world could the Hump do that? He loves it and the crowd love it.
While he over-steps the mark on the self-promotion and sentimentality fronts, it is nostalgia that rules.
Long live nostalgia. Long live the Humpster.
