Streisand Farewell Concert

Sept. 29 -- She’s said it before, and some expect her to say it again, but Barbara Streisand has, at last, given her final concert.

“It feels like time to say goodbye to this part of my life,”Streisand said during her parting words at a sold-out concert in MadisonSquare Garden on Thursday night.

The crowd seemed touched, but as the lengthy standing ovation mightattest, was reluctant to say goodbye.

“There’s a magic about her. Chills just go down through yourspine. It’s hard to let her go,” said Alan Zaslow, who came fromPhiladelphia for Streisand’s curtain call.

The 58-year-old entertainer, who has long complained of stage fright, is hanging up her high heels and gowns to concentrate on acting, directing and recording albums.

The Way We Were

The farewell tour, two shows each in Los Angeles and New York, was a revamped version of Streisand’s Las Vegas Millennium Eve concert, giving audiences a trip down Barbra’s memory lane.

Between songs last night, Streisand shared memories ofher early days playing small clubs in Greenwich Village, singingwith Benny Goodman’s orchestra and doing duets with Judy Garlandand the Bee-Gee’s Barry Gibb.

Streisand, whose live performances have been few-and-farbetween, also explained to the audience why she couldn’t bringherself to perform live for nearly 30 years.

She described playing in Central Park in the late 1960s whereshe was hit by such tremendous stagefright that she wasn’t able toremember the words to three songs.

“I was so traumatized, I couldn’t perform in front of a payingaudience for close to 30 years.”

Streisand performed a 28-song set that included several of her most notablenumbers, such as “There’s a Place for Us,” “Send in the Clowns,”“As Time Goes By,” and “Don’t Rain on My Parade,” from the show Funny Girl. She closed with her signature song, “People.”