OTTAWA -- Mention Engelbert Humperdinck and somehow there's this vision of a live Las Vegas-style showcase that cannot easily be forgotten.

Seeing the 63-year-old entertainer perform in front of a mostly geriatric-aged capacity audience at the National Arts Centre last night and that Vegas vision is played out right before your eyes. Seemingly, the schmaltz and kitsch that is Humperdinck's style must have a favourable following.

How else can you explain album sales well surpassing the 130-million mark, roughly 250 fan clubs with tens of millions of members worldwide, all for the romantic pop-light singer who remains a sex symbol for a generation?

Yet from the percussive thumping of opener This Is What You Mean to Me, the long black suit and bow-tied Humperdinck floored his Vegas/nostalgia pedal-to-the-metal for a good hour and 40 minutes, complete with a pair of middle-aged Petula Clark lookalike backup singers (Regina Lee King and Melissa Copeland), a Paul Schaeffer-esque bandleader (Eddie Tobin) and sax player Mitch Reilly, who could've honed his chops from musical interludes on Saturday Night Live.

Humperdinck took his time to find the right groove, but once he capably crooned old favourites Les Bicyclettes de Belsize and Spanish Eyes, the audience was his for the remainder of the night.

Painful portrayals

Then he opened up a Pandora's box of slick American grandeur, doing impersonations of old Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis, Sammy Davis Jr., Elvis and Julio Iglesias.

Though he admitted he'd never sing rap, imagine my shock hearing the artist formerly known as Arnold George Dorsey warble something akin to rap and rehashing Michael Jackson's infamous Moonwalk to shrills of a joyous crowd is pushing the Vegas act a little too far.

"I got a million of 'em," he snickered repeatedly to the jovial audience.

And if that doesn't make you cringe, how about -- no lie -- a disco version of Strangers in the Night?

Worse, his biggest hits Release Me and After The Lovin' lacked any emotional gusto, as if he had to get through them to satisfy his public.

But said public must have felt some connection, reciting The Last Waltz upon demand, dancing in the aisles to Quando Quando Quando, and hearing backup singer King step to the fore with a country number better than any of Humperdinck's hits.

Granted, it doesn't bode well when your evening of schmaltz begins with bilingual comedian Sylvain Larocque, whose best joke -- in English -- has to do with urinating on a bus riding along Quebec highways.

That might work in America, monsieur, but in Canada, we should know better.

JAM! Rating: 1.5 out of 5