New York's Vulture Reviews "One Last Time"

[Jill 25,280]

The End Is Never Really the End: A dispatch from Tony Bennett’s final Radio City Music Hall performance with Lady Gaga.

Though unused for the past 18 months, Radio City Music Hall’s 6,105 red velvet chairs will likely need a tune-up by the end of this week thanks to Tony Bennett, Lady Gaga, and the 27 standing ovations the pair received during their miraculous, magnificent concert there on Thursday night (August 5).

(...)

When Gaga made her entrance just after 9 p.m., in a sparkling white ball gown, and struck a pose, the crowd — which included Hillary and Bill Clinton, who received a shout-out from the mistress of ceremonies — leapt to their feet and cheered. When the curtain rose an hour later to reveal Bennett for the first time, standing by the piano with his arms outstretched in elated greeting, they stood — clapping and waving, this time as if facing an old friend for the first time in years — until he picked up his microphone and began to sing. The vast majority of those present for Bennett’s final performance at Radio City Music Hall understood the assignment: We were here to watch a beloved New York icon say good-bye to the stage, with his decorated protégé giving him a proper send-off.

(...)

Last night’s show was (...), as the program’s title suggests, a coda for the singer at the end of a seven-decade career that began across the East River, where a teenage Anthony Benedetto worked as a singing waiter in his native Astoria before his smooth tenor won over fans across geography and generations. Though Bennett’s early fame in the ’50s and ’60s earned him deserved accolades, his first Grammy awards, and the praise of Frank Sinatra, Bennett enjoyed an unusual resurgence in his senior years, when he continued to sing the standards of Irving Berlin, Cole Porter, George Gershwin, and the rest of the Great American Songbook with renewed fervor thanks to 1994’s successful MTV Unplugged special, which restored his relevance. A handful of albums featuring collaborations with contemporary chart-toppers — from Billy Joel and Sheryl Crow to Amy Winehouse — followed, reinvigorating the elder statesman’s career.

One collaboration (...) has proven to be more fruitful than the rest. Lady Gaga, like Bennett, grew up with an affinity for the Great American Songbook classics, and was thrilled when he wanted to meet her after watching her croon Nat King Cole’s “Orange Colored Sky” at a 2011 benefit concert in their hometown.

(...)

(I)t was noted that (Bennett) often seemed bewildered and confused while trying to communicate in the studio, but that singing remained a grounding constant in his life. Music is remarkably therapeutic for Alzheimer’s patients, in that it’s been known to miraculously, though temporarily, retie the broken threads of memory: Gayatri Devi, Bennett’s neurologist, told AARP that performing “kept him on his toes and also stimulated his brain in a significant way,” a fact apparent to the Radio City crowd six months after the news of his diagnosis. Bennett did, indeed, appear lucid and downright jovial at Radio City: He scatted in time; his vibrato rarely warbled off-pitch. He rolled through 17 songs in total, including a trio of rousing numbers with Gaga, his moving rendition of Sinatra’s “Fly Me to the Moon,” and an encore of “I Left My Heart in San Francisco,” his career-defining single, with hardly a stumble over a single lyric. The only reminders of Bennett’s condition came in his sparse stage banter between songs and his occasional lean on the piano for support: The swells of applause were often met with a “Wow!” or “Beautiful!” and nothing more, save for one heartfelt thank you for the “beautiful audience” or a triumphant fist raised in the wake of a spirited trumpet solo from Brian Newman, a longtime friend and collaborator of Gaga’s.

(...)

But the tears were kept mostly at bay, as “One Last Time: An Evening With Tony Bennett and Lady Gaga” was, undoubtedly, a celebration of a life and legacy that hasn’t seen the curtain just yet. Gaga, the hostess of the evening, made it very clear throughout her set this was all for Bennett. She shared personal anecdotes at any given opportunity (...) (A)fter she made way for Bennett to savor his own spotlight, she returned, first to sing with him, and later to escort him from the stage — slowly, so he could wave back at the sea of hands that were waving him good-bye.

Read more: https://www.vulture.com/article/lady-gaga-tony-bennett-radio-city-concert-review.html

[Mister Gaga 21,894]

I cried reading this article alone. Will the concert air sometime on TV? Or maybe on netflix...idk, but i'd love to see it

 

[Sassy McSass 814]

10 minutes ago, Mister Gaga said:

I cried reading this article alone. Will the concert air sometime on TV? Or maybe on netflix...idk, but i'd love to see it

 

Me too. I really hope it airs somewhere or they make it into a dvd.

[Not The Real Gaga 7,344]

10 minutes ago, Mister Gaga said:

I cried reading this article alone. Will the concert air sometime on TV? Or maybe on netflix...idk, but i'd love to see it

 

Me2 😭

[SevenWonder 3,122]

10 minutes ago, Mister Gaga said:

I cried reading this article alone. Will the concert air sometime on TV? Or maybe on netflix...idk, but i'd love to see it

 

I think someone here said Netflix filmed it. Fingers crossed...

[GagaSine 7,464]

5 minutes ago, SevenWonder said:

I think someone here said Netflix filmed it. Fingers crossed...

Really curious if anyone who attended noticed cameras or anything like that

[Franch Toast 25,435]

According to Brian Newman's Insta story, it will be aired either on TV or a streaming service. 

[lg5 1,337]

It will most likely be put on Netflix like the user on here said a few days ago, but I also heard that CBS recorded it so it might be put on paramount+, either way I’m so excited to see this show! I assume that the MTV unplugged show will be put on Paramount+ as well because MTV is a part of it. 

[The Fame 3,911]

I wish I could have been there in person  Sounds magical

[tyler k 3,300]

wow I'm crying as I type this right now. I can't wait to see this concert when they air it/release it to streaming, it sounds just so lovely and an incredible tribute to a legend