It was October 1973, I was just out of high school, and the entire DiNizio family (aunts, uncles, cousins, grandma & grandpa, mom & dad!) flew to Las Vegas for the first time for the one and only family vacation we were ever to have. At that time, the airport was literally a shack, a tiny building with small bathrooms and a few slot machines. We stayed at the Hilton International where Elvis Presley was living and performing, but he wasnt working the week of our visit. We saw Jerry Vale, Bill Medley, Fats Domino, Phyllis Diller, Ann Margaret (in her legendary Kitten With A Whip revue with the motorcycles onstage), but the best concert I saw there was The Carpenters at The Riviera, where ironically, almost 40 years later, I performed my Confessions of a Rock Star show there six nights a weeks and lived at the hotel for a year. We were sitting at a table just a few feet away from and directly in front of Karen Carpenter, who was playing drums and singing out front with the band behind her. I know it sounds strange, but she made eye contact with me almost immediately and was looking directly at me and singing to me during the entire concert. At a certain point, it became so obvious that my mom elbowed me and whispered in my ear, Patrick, shes looking at you all the time, she likes you! I sat there and looked shyly back at her as she sang to me, but inside, I was confused, I didnt know what it meant or how to handle it, and years later when I became a professional musician realized that making eye contact with a particular member or members of the audience was a tool used by performers to help them put the show across. On one of my nights off, when I was living at the Riviera in 2012, I snuck into that neglected, dusty, and long-closed showroom at The Riviera where I had sat there some 40 years earlier as a star- struck 17-year-old kid, totally in awe of the great talent of Karen Carpenter. The Riviera showroom was in disrepair, but exactly the same as it was all those years ago, the management had left it untouched. I found the spot and the table where I had sat with my family at that Carpenters show back in 1973. I closed my eyes and thought of that night, and of my family, nearly all of them gone now, but I mostly thought of Karen Carpenter, poor tortured soul, gone too soon, tragic life. I thought of the young and lonely teenager sitting in the audience that night long ago and far away, and of the brief and wonderful memory she had given me, and as I did, the words to Superstar, one of her best song performances, kept playing over and over in my head: Long ago and oh so far away, I fell in love with you before the second show. Your guitar, it sounds so sweet and clear But youre not really here, Its just the radio Dont you remember you told me you loved me baby You said youd be coming back this way again baby Baby, baby, baby, baby, oh, baby, I love you I really do Loneliness is a such a sad affair And I can hardly wait to be with you again What to say to make you come again Come back to me again And play your sad guitar Dont you remember you told me you loved me baby You said youd be coming back this way again baby Baby, baby, baby, baby, oh, baby, I love you I really do
Posted on: Mon, 04 Aug 2014 02:57:18 +0000
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