It’s been less than a month since Nassau Veterans Memorial Coliseum reopened after a $160 million facelift, but the venue attracted a wide range of popular events: beginning with Billy Joel’s opener, followed by Idina Menzel, the Harlem Globetrotters, and Def Leppard—and there’s plenty more to come.
The new arena’s calendar will welcome its latest distinguished performer, Barbra Streisand, on May 4 as part of the first of two shows in New York to close out her first tour since 2012. On May 6, Streisand will perform at Brooklyn’s Barclays Center.
The Brooklyn-born recording artist’s performance at the newly named NYCB Live Nassau Veterans Memorial Coliseum will mark her first concert on Long Island since 1963. Her most recent album is called ENCORE: Movie Partners Sing Broadway. It includes duets with such celebrities as Anne Hathaway, Hugh Jackman, and Melissa McCarthy.
“It’s exciting,” Streisand told WNYC’s Leonard Lopate this week about performing at the renovated Coliseum. “My experience with Long Island, since I was brought up in Brooklyn, when some of the families I knew got a little bit more money, they all moved to Long Island. Long Island to me was like Zanzibar, you know. I never really went out of Brooklyn.”
“Long Island was kind of a fancy place for me,” she added. “So it will be fun to play there.”
The singer noted that her 1963 performance was at the Lido Club in Lido Beach.
Streisand is expected to perform hits from over her six decades in the business, including tracks from her latest studio release.
NYCB Live Nassau Veterans Memorial Coliseum, 1255 Hempstead Tpke., Uniondale. nycblive.com $103-$1,100-plus. May 4. 8 p.m.
(Featured photo credit: Barbra Streisand/Facebook)
