Teen Idol David Cassidy Still Draws Crowds Photo Suzanne Ordas Curry |
I can still remember what the poster - posters - adorning my room of David Cassidy looked like. He seemed so far away back then, just a vision of loveliness on a tiny black and white TV, unreachable. All the way out in California land with his TV family.
It wasn't like today when you could get on the Internet, tweet your favorite star, read their tweets to see if they are in the bathroom or not or what random thought was on their mind. Even as a regular Tiger Beat reader, you really didn't know what those pop idols that were featured in there were really like. And now I know, they had nothing to do with those articles. Maybe David's favorite food really was not french fries. And he was not attracted to girls with a sense of humor. And his favorite color wasn't yellow. But that was our Bible.
David Cassidy gettin' the Trop hoppin' Photo Suzanne Ordas Curry |
Little did I know that this teen idol would have staying power, 40 years later, and that all my peers who dreamed of him back then would still be able to fulfill their teenage fantasy of seeing him in concert. Up close and personal And that is who is at these concerts. Middle-aged women, and men either dragged there by their significant others or on their own. He did have a male fan base as well.
I've seen David in concert three times. Once in Atlantic City, where there was no real seating but just tables. Five minutes in to the concert, all the women ditched their husbands and were five rows deep standing five feet from the stage.
The second time was when he played with Mickey Dolenz of the Monkees and Peter Noone of Herman's Hermits at Westbury Music Fair in New York. That was a great concert, they all played just their hit songs. And they all battled the stage for the mike.
This time it was David Cassidy solo in Atlantic City at the Tropicana which holds about 2,000 people. It was sold out. I was third row center. I had better seats than David's significant other. Barbara, who was in the third row with me but further to the right.
Everyone was there to hear his old songs. The hope was that he would not sing a whole lot of songs he was pushing or songs no one knew. Did he deliver?
Well, he did.
He started off with a mellow version of "C'Mon Get Happy". Then immediately after that he sang " I Can Feel your Heartbeat." You can view it here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YO0klKzlED0
Then he sang "Point Me in the Direction of Albuquerque". Everyone was happy. Everyone knew all the words. I don't recall David playing the guitar the last time I saw him, but he did this time, and he was very good at it. I do wonder if he was really playing the guitar on the Partridge Family. I doubt he was, but now he's damn good at it.
David sure did like bangin' those drums |
He was working really hard. The sweat was everywhere and he had to keep wiping it off. Some fans made comments which was wrong and Mr. Cassidy set them straight. It is really hot up there with those lights and David was playing hard.
David, wore his age well but was showing his age. I don't think anyone cared though, because we were all older and I don't think anyone - females anyway - saw him any way other than with the rose-colored glasses they had on. To them they were looking at the cool guy on the poster. He may have had a shirt and jeans on at the concert, but they were remembering the cool hair, ruffles and scarlet velour.
David promised to take the fans on a "Musical Journey of His Life". He did a pretty good job of that. He started with how he got into music. Did you know he lived in NJ? I did not know that. He lived here from when he was 5 to 12. I was told by a source that he lived in the Scotch Plains area. For that reason he said he felt very "at home" here in Jersey. I am sure he says something like that at every concert but I tend to believe him as he had relatives at this concert.
He talked about his first job, which he got when he moved back to NYC at age 18. It was in a mailroom. At the same time, he got his first acting part. A featured role on Broadway. He said how he remembered a song blasting out of a car when he heard the news on the streets of NYC. He played that song, Hush.
He did a lot of talking between some songs. I liked it, I heard others say that it was a little too much. I did not think so. But he talked about a lot of dead people.
He talked about his dad, and Cole Porter and other musicians. He played a wonderful blues ballad.
He talked about how he spent New Year's Eve one year in the 70's with John Lennon. He said how John had forgotten some of the words to his older songs and David had to reteach him them. My husband did not believe this but I did.
He talked about Davy Jones. Ahh, another teen idol of my days who shared the wall with David. David said that they became really good friends later in life. David was supposed to do a show with him but then Davy unexpectedly passed. You can tell how upset he still is about it. He played "Daydream Believer as an "homage" to him and looked up to the sky. He also said how he had "promised David's family that he would always remember his with a song at his concerts." He also pointed out that his guitar player, up there on stage with him, also played with the Monkees.
He told a lot of stories, some I had heard before. He talked about how he did not want talk out some lyrics in a song, in "Doesn't Somebody Want To Be Wanted?".but that his manager said that the little girls listening to him really wanted to hear to hear him talk. That was correct. This is what his dad told him to do:
I liked the talking. But, I could have used a few more David Cassidy songs. One friend said he really would have liked to hear "Summer Days".
This was his set list and I know that because I have it. It doesn't take much in a crowd of 50 year-old plus people to be the first one to the stage to tear it off an amp.
Set List, David Cassidy at the Tropicana, January 2015 |
Before I went to this concert, I wrote in my pre-show post how if you were a fan of David 's you wouldn't be disappointed with his show. And I still say that.
Here's David closing the show with I Think I Love You. No surprise there, but just what we wanted.
In the movie Music and Lyrics, there is a part of of show where Hugh Grant, who plays a former pop star, is singing to a group of middle-aged women on a stage in the the middle of an amusement park. He thinks no one is listening. His girlfriend, played by Drew Barrymore, tries to make him feel better by telling him "you are making them happy, go on".
Ironically, at the end of the concert, David commented to the crowd, "I hope I made you happy today." You could hear the fans scream back "You did, David."
Indeed you did. Keep it up, David. It's not just your songs, but like feeling the sunlight on your face, the memories you bring take us back to happy times long ago.
Happily written by Suzanne Ordas Curry Photos by Suzanne Ordas Curry
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