The party to announce Liza Minnelli's new CD, "Liza's Back!," which is due in stores Oct. 29, was set to begin at 7 p.m. By 7:30, the food was gone from the midtown Manhattan auditorium, there were no more glasses available at the bar -- and worst of all, no Liza, PEOPLE.com reports.

By 8, more of the same -- leaving the crowd, composed of many people who weren't even alive when Minnelli, 56, won her Best Actress Oscar for 1972's "Cabaret," to chat on their cell phones and to compare the highlights in their hair.

But then the lights dimmed, and out walked the legend: no, not Liza, but veteran producer Clive Davis, 68, whose J Records is releasing the live recording of Minnelli's sold-out summer concert in New York.

Proving quite the showman, Davis -- the record mogul who's handed contracts to Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen, Billy Joel, Whitney Houston and others -- stood on the bare stage and spoke candidly of Minnelli's past personal problems (including, he noted, her "alcoholism") and his reluctance to produce another album of hers. (He had produced the classic 1973 album "Liza with a Z.")

But then, he said, columnist Liz Smith and "The Sopranos" costar Lorraine Bracco convinced him to catch Minnelli's opening-night concert last June. "Forget what you read in the tabloids," Davis told the audience Monday. "She's at the peak of her powers, electrifying and in control."

To prove it, Davis played a seemingly endless 45-minute preview of "Liza's Back!" Just as the crowd was growing tremendously restless, he pulled someone out of the wings.

Wearing a black minidress under an even shorter mink coat -- there were debates in the crowd whether it was faux fur -- Minnelli finally stepped out. And the crowd, which had been growing increasingly impatient, rose to its collective feet and lapped her up.

"I want to thank the public for sticking with me," Liza said touchingly, basking in the applause. "You just come back. It's what it's all about."