Human Nature makes ‘Today’ show sprint count

NEW YORK — Rarely has so much effort gone into singing a single song.

Human Nature appeared on the “Today” show on Monday morning, flying across country and landing Sunday afternoon — just in time to be doused by a flash rainstorm in Manhattan. The first call for sound check Monday was 4:30 a.m. The guys returned to their hotel at 5:30 a.m., went back to 30 Rockefeller Plaza at 9:30 a.m. and rehearsed once more at 10:30.

Then and only then did the headliners at the Sands Showroom at The Venetian sing and groove to “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough.”

The odyssey ended just before 11 a.m., local time. The foursome of Andrew and Mike Tierney, Phil Burton and Toby Allen owed to a manic travel schedule, but the national TV appearance was worth it.

“I’ve got a nervous buzz after that,” Andrew Tierney said just after leaving the “Today” studio. “But no matter how much work it is, it’s exciting to be on that show. It feels important when we’re doing it, certainly.”

Human Nature was in New York promoting their new “Motown & More” show at Sands Showroom, which is a return to an emphasis on crowd-pleasing Motown classics. The foursome, celebrating its 10th year on the Strip, previously appeared on “Today” during the show’s visit to Caesars Palace in January 2016. The HN production experiences a bit of a bump after such national-TV appearances.

“We usually ask people why they come to our show, and usually a month or two after one of these they say they saw us on TV,” Tierney said. He added, “This type of thing has great production value, and you want it to go perfectly. I’d say we’re happy.”

John Katsilometes’ column runs daily in the A section. His PodKats podcast can be found at reviewjournal.com/podcasts.Contact him at jkatsilometes@reviewjournal.com. Follow @johnnykats on Twitter, @JohnnyKats1 on Instagram.