Barry Manilow Cuts Off Central Park Concert Due To Impending Storm

Barry Manilow was cut off mid-song at the New York City Homecoming concert in Central Park on Saturday evening, as severe weather concerns sent more than 60,000 attendees home early.

The singer had been performing his 1978 hit “Can’t Smile Without You” when a voice came over the speakers telling audience members: “Due to approaching severe weather, all persons should move quickly and calmly to the nearest exit and proceed to your vehicles and protected areas outside of the event site. Please seek shelter for your safety.”

Manilow had only gotten through “Copacabana” and “Mandy” before he had to leave the stage. He later called into Anderson Cooper’s show on CNN to talk about the event.

“When I was in the wings, I saw it start to drizzle but I had no idea it was going this far,” he told Cooper, before singing a snippet of his hit song “I Made It Through The Rain.”

Manilow, 78, also shared a clip of the storm in Central Park on his Instagram with the caption “almost made it through the rain.”

https://www.instagram.com/p/CS4Vf1lhHfU/

The inclement weather was brought on by Hurricane Henri and threatened concert-goers as it approached the North East with lightning, thunder, heavy wind and rain.

After the announcement, there was hope that the concert could resume. Mayor Bill de Blasio had told the audience that the concert would resume later in the night, and pushed the New York Police Department to restart the show at 10 p.m., but pouring rain had driven out most of the audience and dangerous weather conditions meant that the show had to be shut down.

The five-hour concert was about halfway done when attendees were asked to leave the park. Jennifer Hudson, Journey, Carlos Santana, LL Cool J and the New York Philharmonic were able to perform before the show was shut down, but concert-goers missed out on performances from The Killers, Bruce Springsteen and Paul Simon.