35th Anniversary Memories: The Concerts
It is not easy to distill 30 years of covering concerts for Whoot/AC Weekly into my favorites or most memorable but I’ll try.
The Boss.
For a brief period, Bally’s Grand (not the current Bally’s but the venue once known as the Golden Nugget, now the Hilton) had summer concerts outdoors. The sound was much better than you would expect, and it afforded me the opportunity to see my favorite singer, Bonnie Raitt, perform in my hometown. I saw Sinatra there, too, but the most memorable concert was by Jackson Browne.
Now Browne is a terrific performer, but it was the unexpected guest during his encore that made it unforgettable. I was in a front row seat when a chant started that sounded like booing. It was Bruuuce, as in Bruce Springsteen, who had never performed in AC but came out and did a three song set with Browne. The cliché fits: The crowd went nuts, including yours truly!
Rita in West Side Story.
While there are too many other great concerts to mention, the ones that jump to mind include when Springsteen finally did play Boardwalk Hall some 20 years later with the E-Street Band and opened with “Atlantic City,” of course. There were the great song-and-dance men, Ben Vereen and Peter Allen, and an Atlantic City favorite who is just as talented, Clint Holmes. There were the song and dance women — besides Rita, there was Chita Rivera, Shirley MacLaine and The Divine Miss M, Bette Midler.
George Carlin
There was George Carlin, enjoyed many times, and Alan King. There was the amazing Aretha Franklin, playing to a half-full house when her career was in decline in the early 1980s (she would come back big time a few years later). There was Sinatra (both in good voice and bad) and his pal Sammy Davis, Jr. who always sounded great. Reba, Willie, Dolly and Trisha Yearwood, Tim McGraw, Carrie Underwood, Alan Jackson and Keith Urban satisfied my love of country music. And one can’t forget the outrageous costumes and production values of a Cher show.
My most embarrassing moment came during a wonderful concert by Rita Moreno. For the “Rita-who?” generation, she is a fabulous singer-dancer-actress best known for her role as Anita in the movie West Side Story. I was sitting in the front row when she zeroed in on me – I guess she thought I had this good seat because I was a high roller. She came over and demanded a big hug and then declared that she now understood, “Why men like big-busted women.” I turned beet red.
I’d love to hear from AC readers about their favorite shows over the decades in town. Either post a comment here, or send along an E-mail to lhoffman@acweekly.com
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