Petrelis Files

Queers Cheer Liza at Her Fabulous San Francisco Concert: Video

All she had to do was make an entrance on the stage at Davies Hall a few minutes after 8 pm on Friday night, and she received a roaring standing ovation.

Basking in the adulation, the legendary Liza Minnelli smiled and bowed in appreciation before thanking us fans and launching into her first number "Teach Me Tonight".

Mike and I were in homo-heaven finally seeing her perform live, and being in the on-stage terrace right section made the evening more special because we were so close to her.

Liza was joined by an excellent seven-man band, including Billy Stritch the longtime music arranger, pianist and accompanist to many a diva.

The song selection featured hits from "Cabaret" and "New York, New York", and hearing tunes from the Martin Scorsese-directed movie ignited a desire to see the restored version of it up on the Castro Theatre's enormous silver screen.

At one point, in between songs, her speaking voice was eerily young again to the point in her career when she played Pookie Adams in "The Sterile Cuckoo" for which she received her first Oscar nomination in 1969. I remember seeing it at the Claremont Theatre in Montclair, New Jersey, and even at age 10 knew I was seeing an emotionally honest actress turn in a wonderful performance.

Liza's fabulous show on Friday made us hungry for more of her, so I shot this short video of her before she did the encore number to have a visual memento of the evening. Like her mother Judy Garland's concert hall shows, the gay men are besides themselves with joy and making themselves hoarse cheering their approval and love.

There were three dolled up girls around age 10 whom we could see from our perch, and I'm so pleased one of them rushed the stage in my video to hand Liza a bouquet. Nice to see some of the (very) younger generation learning diva worship in their tween years.



From Michael and Mike, we give four big enthusiastic thumbs up to the great Liza!