Barry Manilow’s April 13 concert at UBS Arena in Elmont will be rescheduled to a later date after doctor’s orders, the 82-year-old singer told fans in an email sent Wednesday. The show had been billed as “Manilow: The Last Long Island Concert.”
The postponement is tied to Manilow’s December lung cancer diagnosis, surgery and recovery. For fans like Lynne Grant Greenberg, a retired teacher in Levittown and a Fanilow for 50 years, the news landed with sympathy rather than disappointment. “We love Barry, and the most important thing is that he gets healthy,” she said. “That’s all we really care about.” Greenberg said she and other fans would be back when he is ready: “We just need him to get healthy, and then when he comes back, we'll be there.”
That reaction says a lot about the audience Manilow has built over decades. Lori McGill of Kings Park has attended more than 100 of his concerts and has met him 19 times at shows. She said, “I didn’t miss a minute of his residency,” and added, “The music just speaks to me, and it always has.” McGill said she first bought a 10th row orchestra seat at the Uris Theatre, now the Gershwin Theatre, for $12.50 in December 1976. “I was hooked,” she said.
For some fans, the connection has become part of daily life. McGill uses “I Can’t Smile Without You” to teach students at Summit Lane Elementary School in Levittown, folding the song into her classroom work as easily as she once folded concert dates into her calendar. She also described the limits of where her money goes: “I don’t drink. I don’t gamble,” she said. “In Las Vegas, I Barry Manilow.”
The postponement follows months of recovery after surgery and comes as fans who have filled arena seats and meet-and-greets wait for the next date. Premium meet-and-greet ticket packages can cost around $2,500, with the money helping fund the Manilow Music Project. That makes the delay more than a scheduling change. It pauses a long-running fan ritual built on the expectation that Manilow will be there, and on the loyalty of people who say they will be there when he returns. Greenberg put it plainly: “Everybody is going to say the same thing. We just want him to be well.”
