Concert Reviews
St. George Theatre, Staten Island
September 13, 2008
I was very excited/nervous/anxious for this show, because it was my first time to New York. My anxiety was not in vain LOL, the drivers there and volume of traffic was even worse than I had dreamed! The Newark airport is only 15 miles away, but I flew into Philadelphia for other reasons, so I had a 100-mile drive to Staten Island and my hotel.
I lost count on how many times I had to stop and pay a toll (!!), but it was quite a few times! We don't have toll roads in Colorado, so I wasn't used to all these stops requiring money!! One was $3.50, one was 45 cents, another was $2.00, then right before getting to Staten Island, $8.00! I was thinking how much I love Colorado by this time LOL.
OK, I made it to the hotel and got ready for the show so that I'd have plenty of time to find the theatre. The map to the theatre said 7 miles. That was the scariest 7 miles I've ever driven. I got on the highway first thing, and it was really congested, yet all the vehicles were flying at about 70 miles per hour, and there seemed to be about 12 inches between each car! I got to the top of the ramp to get on the highway and immediately got flipped off and honked at for going too slow! I guess "merge" and "bonsai" mean the same thing in New York???
I made it to the theatre and was dismayed to see it was in a horrible looking neighborhood, rather ghetto-like! The theatre had valet parking available, but there were tons of cars waiting, so I drove around the block and found a parking meter along the street.
Then I had a little heart attack, as I was sitting in the car talking on the cell phone and I suddenly felt my little spaghetti strap on my dress snap! I looked at it in horror and my mind was reeling..what in the heck do I do now? Wear my long black jacket all through the show?? I looked through my purse but of course I had emptied it of most everything for the trip, so all I had was makeup and gum. I'm thinking "gum.what can I do with that." (When I told Norm this story20he called me McGyver LOL.) Then I had an idea, just break the other strap too and tie them together like a halter dress. Ok, I did that. Problem solved, nobody knew the difference. Except for every single person that is reading this LOL.
I went inside the theatre and they took me to my seat in the front row. There was an orchestra pit between the stage and seats, with a stairway on each side coming down to the seats. My seat was on the far right, very close to the stairs, so I hoped that David would come down those stairs, but unfortunately he never did, and they had a security guard sitting at the foot of each stairway so that nobody could pass. These guards were also very picky about anybody standing up, so each time we jumped up, we were immediately asked to sit down. Bummer!
The lights went d own and the curtain went up, and Davy Jones came on. I had seen him with David in June in Wisconsin, so every joke he told, I had already heard it. His show consists of a lot of "old age" jokes. He even joked that "I used to watch the Partridge Family as a child." I don't know many of his songs, but he's still an enjoyable entertainer. Until he did something really strange. He said "you may be thinking I look a bit bulky" and something about "no I'm not wearing a bullet-proof vest." and started unbuttoning his shirt. He pulled it all the way open to show us his, um, very round, tan and girlish looking man boobs! The audience let out a mixture of loud gasps from DC fans and excited screams from Davy's fans! Then he said "nobody told me when I got older I'd get breasts" and he continued to hold his shirt open and then rubbed his moobs and pinched his nipple and said "oh I must be cold!" IT WAS WEIRD!!!
During his show, he came down the stairs and into the audience, which his fans loved. He went all the way into the back section and then back to the front, and as he went back up onstage, he asked some fans to come up there with him. So there were about 15 girls up on stage, and those girls were so delighted. They were all trying to hug and kiss Davy and get pictures. I thought how wonderful it would be if David would let some of us come onstage. I doubt that will ever happen! (There's a picture of the fans onstage with Davy on www.wireimage.com (search under Davy Jones).
Davy seemed to play forever, but probably because I was so anxious to see David. Fin ally the lights went down, curtain again went up, and David's band started playing. I think it was around 10 p.m. before David started.
He looked magnificent as always and very smiley. He kept his shirt buttoned the whole time LOL, thank God!
The show was pretty much the standard songs, with a few exceptions:
David said he would normally play Crossroads, but because he had sprained his left hand, he didn't think he could properly play it, so he played Sweet Little Angel instead. He told us that he had accidentally tripped when he was pulling his luggage to his car and fell down, right on his hand. Then he said..yes you guessed it.. "I've fallen and I can't get up!" He tried to show us his injury, then said "well you can't see much anymore because I've bitten all the scabs off."
During Echo Valley, I grabbed my cell phone when the time was approaching, but there was really no way to get the phone to David. As it was time to do the cell phone bit, David looked right at me and I held up my phone. He said "OH GOD DON'T THROW IT! I CAN JUST SEE IT AND ME GOING INTO THAT PIT!"
David brought Terri out to sing "Brass in Pocket" as he played the drums. I love watching this! He looks like he's having so much fun. Terri was dressed so cute too..a little short red plaid skirt=2 0and black tights and tall black boots with lots of buckles. I really love this new part of the show!
David mentioned during the show that he had relatives in the audience. I think he said cousins? I didn't see anyone I recognized like his brothers or Sue or Beau.
There was no acoustic set since David's hand was hurting and he said he didn't want to show us how much he sucked on the guitar. But we got lots of other great songs, like Common Thief. I love that song and we don't always hear it, so that was great.
Although we could not approach the stage or stand up, David noticed a poster that Dawn had brought, and asked her to bring it to the security guard so he could pass it t o David. Then David told her to wait there, because he was going to give it back to her. He brought it to the middle of the stage and said "Now I want you to remember, we are here AMONGST FRIENDS" and then turned the poster around so we could see it. It said THEN and NOW and had an old picture of David with long hair, and then a current one. At the bottom it said "STILL NUMBER ONE." David made his usual joke. "she's rather pretty" about his old picture. There is a picture on www.wireimage.com of him holding the poster (search under David Cassidy).
Sitting next to me was a darling little 9-year-old girl (Charlotte's granddaughter) named Daija, and she had brought a beautiful bouquet of roses for David. We didn't know how she was going to give them to him, due to the orchestra20pit between us and him, so she just held them for a long time. Finally, almost at the end of the show, the nicest thing happened. The security guy at the bottom of the stairs near us came over to her and said "why don't you bring those over here by the stairs, because otherwise he's not going to see you" and he put his finger on her nose, and said "OK sweetie?" She looked at me with a bit of fear in her eyes and said "Come with me!" I told her I was too tall to be standing there, but she didn't want to get out of her seat alone. So I got on my knees and moved forward to the railing, and the security guy motioned for her to come over. We waited until David noticed her, and then the security guy handed the flowers from Daija to David. He took them and went back to the middle of the stage, then said "THANK YOU SOOOO MUCH! HOW OLD ARE YOU?" and she said "nine" and the look on her face was sheer happiness! Mean ole security guard had a soft heart!!
During the last song (ITILY), the security finally let people get up, although they still couldn't get near David. Everybody stood at the railing and sang along. When David finished, the lights did not go down, so we cheered until he came back for an encore, which was Cry, and he devoted it to his father.
And then once again it was over. Sigh..that gorgeous man. I wonder if I will ever stop adoring him?
Not likely! Also not likely that I will venture to New York again either, yikes!!
Carol
