David Cassidy in the News
They Think They Love You
David Cassidy, Certified Hot Daddy, Meets the Mommies -- and Lives
October 13, 2002
By David Segal
Washington Post
An amusing little war broke out Saturday night at the Warner Theatre and it wasn't a fair fight. On one side were two mild-mannered security officers with a mandate to keep the aisles clear. On the other side: A wide-eyed horde of fortyish women loaded on red wine, some waving concert tchotchkes from their youth, all of them hellbent to touch the hand, foot or garment of former teen idol David Cassidy.
The ladies won in a rout. The skirmish turned lopsided early in the show, after a fan in a yellow shirt rushed the stage and Cassidy leaned over, mid-song, and clasped her outstretched palm. That was it. Dozens of women were soon racing out of their seats, hopping up and down, woo-hooing to lung capacity and dancing with their cameras. You haven't seen so much determination in a crowd since the zombies got the upper hand in "Dawn of the Dead."
Never underestimate the power of nostalgia, especially when it is mixed with cheap merlot. David Cassidy -- all 125 pounds of him -- was the biggest, most screamed-about pop star in the world for a few years starting in 1970. He sold out Madison Square Garden, moved millions of records and a couple of Kmarts' worth of merchandise: pens, gum, lunchboxes, posters, coloring books. It started, and pretty much ended, with the four-year run of "The Partridge Family," a sitcom about a family pop band that squabbled good-naturedly, rehearsed in a garage and traveled to performances in a colorful bus.
That was a long time ago, but it could have been last Friday, judging from the ardent, though less-than-capacity, crowd at the Warner. It was as though everyone in the building had thawed out the eighth-grade, tummy-hurting passion felt for Cassidy decades ago and then discovered that this flash-frozen ecstasy is thrillingly fresh. David-induced love, it turns out, is oddly impervious to time.
"I think he's the reason I moved to America," said Heather Sanderson, during the show's intermission. She was standing in the lobby with a worn-looking David Cassidy scarf wrapped around her neck and a couple of vintage concert programs clutched in her hands. One of them is from a show in England, where she grew up.
"When I was 12, I decided, 'I'm going to move to California,' " she recalled, attributing that decision to her regular viewing of "The Partridge Family," which ran on the BBC on Saturday mornings. And move to California is precisely what she did, though she has since relocated to Northern Virginia, where she teaches drama.
"I used to just lie there on the couch listening to David Cassidy. And you know the old record players, they'd just play and play and play, and I'd just lie there listening to that song 'Could It Be Forever,' swearing that he was really saying, 'Could it be for Heather?' "
There were years in which that kind of reaction bugged David Cassidy, but that was a long time ago, too. Before the show on Saturday night, he was sitting in a room backstage, pouring himself a cup of tea, battling a stomach virus that had ruined his appetite for the last few days.
"No one will know," he promised, spooning honey into his cup.
Cassidy is 52 now, no longer the shaggy, love-beaded pinup you can catch on Nick at Nite but not a weathered cynic either. He takes David Cassidy-hood pretty seriously. He stresses the excellence of the pop songs that made him famous, and the high caliber of talent assembled to make Partridge Family albums and his solo work.
For a long time, he was shocked by the scale of his fame, which forced him into a reclusive life that he found intolerable.
"I couldn't understand how people didn't see that I was a guy playing a part, because when I finished, I was a 24-year-old. I was playing 17. I was a grown man. I didn't look it maybe, but I was."
Apparently, he caroused like a grown man, too. "I didn't drink or smoke or take drugs. I worked 18 hours a day. Women were the only vice I had." And they tossed themselves at him, lining up at the gate where the show was taped and mobbing him at every opportunity.
"I don't like people with bravado," he says, declining further details. "But I friggin' loved it."
For the last decade or so, Cassidy has worked in Vegas, and for this, his first tour in a decade, the Sin City influence shines through. The show starts with his seven-piece band vamping through a cheesy medley of '70s rock that includes Led Zeppelin's "Whole Lotta Love." "I want you to see if you can rock with me," he tells the crowd, as he skips onstage.
Initially, the ladies remained in their seats, thrilled but not exactly unglued. You thought: Uh oh, we're in for a low-decibel evening of pathos.
But Cassidy, whose onstage hip thrusting owes a lot to Elvis Presley, is no quitter, and he knows what his fans want. Once the women realized that their idol might actually touch them if they eluded the security guards -- who shooed away wave after wave of fans throughout the night -- the concert became a high-energy game of tag. Cassidy was willing to play, though at times he seemed annoyed to again find himself drowned out by screams during his between-song introductions.
Aside from the Partridge Family hits, including "I Think I Love You," "I Can Feel Your Heartbeat," and the show's theme song, "C'mon Get Happy," he stayed away from the songs that made him famous. He played a number of covers instead, including Bob Seger's "Hollywood Nights," which for some hard-to-fathom reason he used as an encore.
For most of the time, the show onstage paled next to the show at the foot of the stage. Amid the first rush of pandemonium, one woman tried to pass Cassidy her necklace, which he declined. Another managed to pass him a cell phone that, she later would explain, was programmed to play "I Think I Love You" when it rang. But either the thing wasn't working or Cassidy couldn't hear the chime, so he stood there for an awkward moment with a Nokia against his ear. He returned the phone and shrugged.
"This never happened in the '70s," he said, smiling.
