FORT WORTH - In any language, the machoo-but-sensitive lover is a musical stereotype.

It could be some medieval balladeer lost to history hundreds of years ago, or Bobby "Blue" Bland crooning I'll Take Care of You or the Righteous Brothers melting hearts with Unchained Melody -- or Julio Iglesias anytime in the past 30-plus years.

Whoever the women are sighing over is as much (or more) the idea of a romantic swain as the guy onstage. Because chances are, seeing him onstage is as close as they'll ever get.

And Iglesias knows this. His hits-filled show Thursday night at Bass Performance Hall was chock-full of the beseeching Latin love songs that have made him famous around the world.

Now pushing 60 but with an admirably slim build, Iglesias eased through a (usually) tight, slick evening, his voice in good shape, his eight-person band (including three backup singers) on target, and his ability to make women forget about their husbands undiminished.

From Agua Dulce, Ague Sala and the big singalong Ae, Ao to a perfectly unhurried take on Patsy Cline's Crazy, he easily gave the crowd what it wanted. And having a couple dancing on a few songs -- tangos were their specialty -- added a bit of visual spice.

But what made this show more interesting than a performance by, say, Luis Miguel is that Iglesias is a bit eccentric. He's fond of rambling between-song monologues that seem to go from A to Q and R before getting back to B. He also spent most of one song singing with his back to the audience. And he addressed the crowd as "my Anglo-Saxons" several times, seemingly ignoring that most of the crowd was Hispanic.

And then there was the stool. A stool was placed center stage -- opening comedian Tim Wilkins set his bottle of water on it -- and Iglesias didn't move the stool. It stood there, between him and the audience, and Iglesias spent much of the night as close to the drum riser as he could get without sitting in his drummer's lap. Think of Mick Jagger spending all night right in front of Charlie Watts and not working the stage. Odd stuff.

As for Wilkins, his 20-minute act, which included bits about hating to fly and having a nagging wife, was mainstream vanilla, but he showed deft timing, and his set wasn't bad at all. If you like vanilla.