David Cassidy on the Web
Time Warp: David Cassidy And Partridge Family Collection
May 8, 2019
By Brian Fulton
apnews.com
April 4, 1972: Screaming fans filled the Catholic Youth Center in Scranton to see singer, actor and teen idol David Cassidy.
Cassidy, who played Keith Partridge in the popular ABC comedy “The Partridge Family,” was in the city as part of his nationwide tour. When a Scranton Times reporter asked what he really wanted to do in his show business career, Cassidy responded with “I like doing these concerts — they’re fantastic.”
And people loved seeing him. In March, ahead of his appearance in Scranton, Cassidy played before 21,000 fans at Madison Square Garden in New York City. Five-thousand people attended his Scranton show, paying between $5 and $7.50 for tickets.
Kim Carnes and Dave Ellingson opened for Cassidy, for whom they also wrote songs and sang backup. Cassidy then wowed his teen fans for two-and-a-half hours.
“You never heard so much screaming, crying and shouting in all your life,” a spokesperson for the Catholic Youth Center said.
That sentiment was echoed in a parent’s review of the concert that appeared in the Times a few days after the show. Ellie Rosen of Clarks Green attended the show with her children and called the noise level “monumental.” On Cassidy’s performance, Rosen said he “seemed most comfortable during the medley of ‘Partridge Family’ songs, but, nevertheless, his contrived movements seemed to me to be the gargantuan contortions of an ungainly apprentice stripper.” Despite her thoughts on his dancing, Rosen added that “seeing David Cassidy, or a reasonable facsimile, is an experience everyone should have once in a lifetime.”
Cassidy returned to the region in October 1991 with his television brother, Danny Bonaduce, for a concert at F.M. Kirby Center for the Performing Arts in Wilkes-Barre and then again in August 2016 to perform at the Schuylkill County Fair.
Cassidy died on Nov. 21, 2017, at 67 from liver failure.
