Cool or Embarrassing - You Make the Call

Yes, it's true. Shaun Cassidy did tour to support his albums and he actually played Civic Centers. This is the ad from my local paper, vintage 1979. They used the cover of his Born Late album, and the promo sticker for the "Hey Deanie" single can be seen.

What the hell kind of a name is Deanie anyway? I was always a bit put off by it. But isn't Shaun cute? His hairs a bit too long, but thats okay. Because we all know that cuteness always overrides an odd girl name, like strange old four legged mutant creature Deanie.

Yeah, that's right. I went to the show. How could I miss it? I can't believe my ticket cost $8.50, because the seat wasn't all that great. I was on the left side of the venue a couple of sections from the back. Geez, the $8.00 seats must have been terrible. Maybe you had to sit behind an aggressive outcast with a huge afro and a sharp knife.
I don't remember much about the performance, except that Shaun was a small blob in a spotlight and his satiny spandex pants were really tight. Oh yeah...and the little so and so came onto the stage pretending to be an old man, complete with long flasher-type raincoat, feet shuffling, back hunched over, possibly a cane, and I believe wearing a rubber old man mask.

As the band played, the old man stood there and the teenage girls yelled for Shaun and told the old man to get off the stage. But then the crowd went wild as the old man threw off his mask and creepy raincoat, to reveal he was Shaun. Girls screamed with delight, while at the same time, I couldn't believe he was so lame. So basically what I'm saying is that Shaun passed for a creepy old flasher.

Here's the souvenier program I bought. I also bought a poster, but I don't have a picture of it at this time. I'll dig it out at some point because you really have to experience it. Shaun looks a bit sleepy eyed in this exciting, real, not posed, in concert cover shot. Love the ribbony pink belt, iiiiiieeeeeeeeeee!

Just three more things to mention to make the concert going complete

1. My cousin brought sticks of incense to the concert, which we lit and waved around - for about ten seconds. Then an usher practically flew up the stairs to demand we extinguish them. Geez Dude, it's incense. There's not even a flame, just a smoldering mass of smelly stuff on a stick. Oddly enough he didn't say anything to the girls smoking, even though there were no smoking signs posted everywhere. Oh how I loathed him, the stupid little powermad usher.
   
   
2. The girl behind us taped the concert. This was the 70s before little walkmen, so she had a full sized portable tape recorder in her lap. I wondered how she got it past security and was often tempted to turn around and smack her due to her constant, high pitched screeching.
   
   
3. I would guess that the girl's tape recording was mostly screaming teenage girls with just a hint of Shaun Cassidy. Most of crowd of 8,000 girls (thats right, I said 8,000) were screeching, squeeling, and screaming. I never did get into that whole teenybopper girl going nutzo thing. I had crushes on teen idols, but I never squeeled with delight or cried due to an emotional overload just because someone walked on stage or I caught a glimpse of them. (I must confess my ex once screamed like a teenage girl at a Ramones concert when he saw the band looking through a second floor window overlooking the stage.)