Peter is a smooth, dulcet, mellow crooner and he regaled us with songs of Frank Sinatra, Tony Bennett, Dean Martin, Fred Astaire, Bobby Darin, Elvis, and the like, and each selection began with an informative intro as to the song's history, composer, etc. This is his second year performing here as part of the "Concerts in the Plaza" series and many of the spectators had been here last year to see him, too. There was a good-sized crowd despite this being a make-up concert after being rained out on Tuesday.
Peter has a talented seven piece band backing him up, and in the tradition of the old-time bands, they had musical interludes between some verses which allowed Peter to travel through the audience and shake hands, and he obviously relishes meeting the fans up close.
After singing several Academy Award winning songs from the 30s/40s/50s/60s -- songs everyone recognized and often knew the words to -- he asked what song won this year's award as best song -- and no one knew. Then he asked about last year's winner, and no one in the large audience knew. So he explained his preference for songs that people leave humming the tune of, songs with lyrics that tell a story, songs sung so you can actually understand the words. And the audience clapped in wild approval with his statement.
As an experiment, I took some video with my new Nikon D300s camera and was pleased with the result. I have to take the video without using the viewfinder (since the mirror is in the up position) and though I can zoom, I have to also manually re-focus, so the result is a bit shaky, but here are three brief excerpts to give you an idea of his voice and stylings...
So I heartily suggest seeing him if you get the chance, and he also has albums for sale on his website and on iTunes.
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