Love Is All That I Ever Needed. Chapter 15. The Madison Square Garden Concert
In 1971 one more Partridge Family’s album was recorded. It was done using any free moment in David's busy 1971 schedule.
Recording dates : August 25, September 4, and December 16, 19.
The album, ‘Shopping Bag’ was released in March 1972, certified gold, but it wasn’t
as successful as previous ones. Only 17 weeks on charts, peaked at number 18 on April 22.
A single was released earlier, with Tony Romeo’s pop masterpiece, ‘It’s One Of Those Nights’,
but made it only to number 22 in January.
The second single did even worse. ‘Am I Losing
You ?’ (Irwin Levine, L. Russel Brown), achieved number 59 in April.
There were more Tony Romeo’s songs on ‘Shopping Bag’, co-written with Wes Farrell - ‘Last
Night’, ‘Hello, Hello’ and ‘If You Ever Go’; written by Bobby Hart and Wes (again) - ‘Something
New Got Old’; by Terry Cashman and Tommy West - ‘Every Song Is You’, Tommy Boyce and
Bobby Hart wrote ‘Girl, You Made My Day’ and one more Irwin Levine and L. Russell Brown’s
song - Every Little Bit O’You’.
And another of David's solo compositions, ‘There’ll Come a
Time’, like always very personal, showing his ambivalent feelings about own career.
Not all songs were very good on this album, but they are The Partridge Family’s classics and
all of them were performed on the show.
Foremost David’s emotional vocals makes that album
still very enjoyable.
Everything indicated that The Partridge Family’s popularity was slowly
waning. But not David’s.
He was still the reigning teen idol - even though in 1972 a serious, much younger rival
appeared, Donny Osmond. Sometimes his pic was even bigger than David’s on teen
magazines covers.
Everybody felt there was no time to lose and David in 1972 again worked non stop. 24 new
episodes of Season 3 were filmed. One of them, ‘I Left My Heart in Cincinnati’ was made in
August in a really special location. At Kings Island Amusement Park, which was just open a
few months previously.
A lot was written about the Partridges’ visit, especially about the security
problems. Police officers and security men were trying to keep girls away from David.
The script to that episode was written by Dale McRaven. At the time he was in a relationship
with Susan Dey. 13 years her senior, he took care of Susan and cured her from anorexia. In
Season 3 there were more episodes with Laurie who was fighting for women’s equality and
other social causes.
David in 1972 became a global superstar and sex symbol, but his TV alter ego, Keith Partridge,
had a lot of disappointments. In one episode Keith didn’t get a role in Hollywood or in another
one flunked sex education at school.
David was a professional but working on the set became
frustrating and he felt he stopped developing as an actor. Sometimes he was late on the set
after playing concerts all weekend and Shirley didn’t like it.
David kept getting
movie scripts, but they used his teen idol image. People started forgetting that he once played
dramatic roles.
He felt that he had enough when they were filming an episode called ‘Bedknobs and
Drumstick’. It was aired in February 1973. The Partridges’ manager, Reuben Kincaid, got the band a tv commercial for a chicken company, and all of them had to wear chicken suits. David wrote
in his book: “The line that I will never forget was, ‘Perfect. Here we are, six lunks in chicken
suits.’ That’s when I knew it was time to leave The Partridge Family. I said, ‘That’s it. I don’t want to do this any more’. It became kind of a mantra for me. Here we are, six lunks in chicken
suits.”
David started his 1972’s concert tour on February 19, in Pittsburgh, PA and finished October
7 in Tulsa, OK. 59 concerts, all over the country, among them were his first two gigs outside
the USA, in Canada.
Those concerts were very demanding physically. Even getting to them
took extraordinary effort including countless hours of flying from and to LA. David sang, played
guitar and piano. Sometimes it was also frustrating because, especially in the second part of
the year, not all concerts were sold out.
A fragment from a review published in the Syracuse
Herald Tribune in September 1972 : ’Cassidy’s performance was physically demanding (..) It
seemed to drain the emotion from him and resulted in screaming and shouting from a rather
disappointingly small audience in attendance.’.
David was very disappointed that his concert at Hollywood Bowl had to be canceled. He saw
so many great performers there when he was a teen. He was to play on August 4. Everything
was ready, the tickets were printed, so we know they were quite expensive, and the concert
was to start at 8.30.
Barbara Lewis wrote in an article titled ‘David Cassidy - This Kid Has
Something’ : ‘While young girls throughout the world bestow David Cassidy with adoration and
standing-room-only crowds, he’s never quite established himself as a hometown favorite. It
was the reason behind his decision to cancel his August 4 date at Hollywood Bowl.’ And also
the concert on March 30 in Fayetteville was canceled because advanced ticket sales were
insufficient.
We can also read in some reviews that fans wanted to listen only to hits and they weren’t
interested in new songs. The Lincoln Star, September 1: ’It seemed though David Cassidy,
the small, slender, attractive young star of TV was transformed into David Cassidy the swivel-hipped sex idol. (..) Cassidy has plenty of talent (..) Most of the audience, 10-14 years of age,
seemed disinterested in songs they didn’t immediately recognize. Instead of screaming while
their heart-throb vocalized those tunes, they talked.(..) the most moving performance was a
ballad Cassidy wrote and accompanied himself on piano too -’Two Time Loser”.
The most famous were two David’s concerts performed in March 1972.
On March 5 he played at the Astrodome in Houston. There are a lot of misunderstandings
about it. Even on the David Cassidy Official Website we can read that David broke the
attendance record at this venue, and sold out the Houston Astrodome twice in one day with
56,000 in one show. Unfortunately, it’s not true. Yes, there were thousands of people, and
many of them came to see David, but not everybody and many had no idea who David was.
It was the 40th Annual Houston Livestock Show. During the rodeo some entertainers
appeared. Roy Rogers, Dale Evans, The 5th Dimension, Wayne Newton, Glen Campbell, and
David Cassidy. For David, it was a bizarre experience. He performed twice for 20 minutes.
The place wasn’t designed for playing music. There were problems with the sound system,
and he had a cold.
The next concert was the most important for David - the one he was the most proud of. In his
native city. At the most prestigious place, with his family in the audience. 21,000 people came
to see him. David Cassidy’s moment of glory on Saturday, March 11, 1972. Madison Square
Garden in New York.
The concert aroused an unusual level of interest, and tickets just flew out. At the press
conference before the concert, the room was packed with photographers and reporters. David
looked calm and serious, but he was also very sure of himself.
The next day New York Daily News wrote: ’Young David Cassidy, TV and recording idol,
arrived at Madison Square Garden yesterday afternoon and tamed it about as easily as the
first David tamed Goliath. They screamed, shouted, jumped up and down’96
New York Times: ’Parents covered their ears as scratch followed squeal and wondered over
the phenomenon that is singer David Cassidy, he will be 22 next month double the age of his
average fan’.
‘Rolling Stone: ’Like a young and healthy animal of no particular gender, he moved as he sang
in a graceful, almost choreographed way’.
It’s hard to find a set list from it. We know he sang 16 songs and an amazing video still exists
with the concert’s opener, ‘I Can Feel Your Heartbeat’. David looked so charismatic in his
white jumpsuit. In the pics we can see his commitment and his happiness.
Wherever he played and regardless of the number of viewers he always gave everything he
had. In many reviews, even written by those who didn’t value David as a singer, it was
emphasized how hard he worked on stage and how the audience went crazy for him.
On
September 4, 1972 David played 2 concerts for 70,000 fans at Ohio State Fair, in
Columbus.”He works every inch of the stage, strutting, prancing, dancing and shaking his way
fore and aft (..) the kids loved every minute of it’...
David Cassidy :’Could It Be Forever?’, 2007, p.264
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