The time David Cassidy played the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo
November 22, 2017
By J.R. Gonzales
www.houstonchronicle.com
Photo: Othell O. Owensby, HC Staff David Cassidy performs at the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo, March 1972.
By all accounts, it wasn't that great of a concert.
But if you were one of the thousands of teens at the Astrodome on March 5, 1972, did it really matter?
David Cassidy, well into his run as a teen heartthrob on TV's "The Partridge Family," closed out the 1972 Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo with two performances. The 33,620 who attended the afternoon show set a rodeo record for the largest attendance ever for a closing day matinee. The 23,108 who showed up for the evening closer also set an attendance record.
The concert though, according to the Houston Post, was apparently marred by a) a poor sound system, b) Cassidy's failing voice thanks to the flu and c) it was at the Astrodome.
David Cassidy at the 1972 rodeo. (Othell O. Owensby / Chronicle file)
"It's a beautiful place, but so big," Cassidy told Houston Chronicle TV-Radio Editor Ann Hodges between shows. "It's tough playing in there. There's no way to get close to the audience to reach out and touch them."
(In August 1971, Cassidy performed at Hofheinz Pavilion, a considerably more intimate venue compared with the Dome.)
Cassidy, who died Tuesday at the age of 67, didn't spare a kind word when asked what he thought of Houston.
"I really like this town. Houston has always been good to me. And I've never been anywhere where people were more hospitable."
Link to two Houston Chronicle Newspaper articles from 1972
