Another Anniversary, Another Opening Act Story

It seems that I’ve got dates spread out all over the calendar that commemorate something. Maybe it’s having been married three times and feeling compelled to remember all sorts of dates, though it might also be my own anality that’s to blame. Whatever, today is the 36th anniversary of my first wedding, an event attended by nearly 250 friends and family.
That wedding was by far the most lavish of the three, taking place in the posh San Francisco Metropolitan Women’s Club, where my new in-laws reserved an entire floor of the club, with an open bar and a fully catered three-course dinner. The cost of the whole evening was over $10,000, probably equal to about ten times that now. There was a nice Rock & Roll element to it as well, as members of The Tubes were there to play at the reception backing me, the wedding singer. And just as I was about to take my vows, someone offered me a line of cocaine. I declined, deciding I needed to do this sober, but as soon as it was done and I kissed the bride, I was in the bathroom taking the man up on his offer.
What made the day more chaotic than anything else was that 1978 had been a fantastic year for Rick & Ruby, getting many critical accolades, and playing the venues we fantasized about only a year or so before. Now one of the Bay Area’s larger indoor venues was being offered to us, the Circle Star Theatre, a 2500-seat venue in San Carlos, 30 miles south of San Francisco (and no longer around). My future (ex) wife and I had already settled on our wedding date a couple months before, and sadly, the Circle Star dates would encompass the wedding date as well. It was either accept all the dates or none of them.
We agreed to do the gigs, and oh, I didn’t mention yet who we were opening for. It was Tony Orlando. We didn’t exactly go “Oh, Yay, Tony Orlando,” and in fact, I couldn’t remember liking ANY song of his, but that wasn’t a factor in the decision making process. It was a good opportunity to see if we could tailor our act for a less-hip faction than our usual big-city audiences, plus the money was good. We thought that if we were able to open for Iggy Pop (yes, we did!) and survive, then opening for Mr. Orlando would be easy in comparison. As Albert Brooks once said, describing his accepting a last-minute opening act slot, “Greed almost ended my career!”
It’s not just that we were playing for a suburban crowd that actually LIKED the rubbish that Orlando and Dawn force fed us throughout the 70’s, it was also a crowd that didn’t want to be taxed in any way, which was exactly what our act did to them. Mostly, we were given blank stares. Orlando’s audience wasn’t just families, there were a LOT of overweight teenage girls who looked to Tony for inspiration, as he had been successful battling weight problems in the 1960’s. Of course, Tony spent a good part of the 70’s indulging in the Number One Appetite Spoiler with his high profile Best Friend the late comedian Freddie Prinze, who had blown his brains out a couple years earlier at the ripe old age of 22. Probably after Prinze’s suicide, Tony wasn’t eating anyway, another guaranteed weight control method.
His audience just didn’t get us, and we had four days of shows to soldier through, leading up to the Sunday show on my wedding day. They absolutely ADORED him, understandable since that’s who they paid to see, and his whole act seemed to say “I’ll do anything, just LOVE me!” Actually, I think that’s the underlying message from most performers, but Tony did everything but say the words. There might have been a few suburban asses he’d neglected kissing through his 90-minute set, but I sure couldn’t find them. To his credit, the man was a truly brilliant performer, who used every inch of the circular revolving stage, making sure no audience member wasn’t seeing the Full Tony.
For us it was an extremely long walk from the stage after each show, and along that middle aisle to the dressing rooms, for the applause had already died out by the time we’d left the actual stage. There was still about 30 yards of silence we had to walk through, though there were a few “kind” old ladies who chose to encourage us with comments like “Absolutely Terrible.” That went on for Thursday’s show, and Friday’s, and early show Saturday. Then for some reason, Saturday late show, the one which all of me and my wife’s relatives came to, was actually good, the only one of the whole run. Big sigh of relief there, as it would have been hard to explain to my new in-law family, “No, really, we’re good!”
We celebrated that night back in San Francisco, my last night of bachelorhood. What we also found out when we arrived at Circle Star the next day was that it was Tony who had the bad one. He’d made a point in all his shows of confessing to his crowd about his nervous breakdown and other mental issues that had been bothering him the last couple years. “But Ladies & Gentlemen, let me say,” he recited,”I’ve been checked out recently, and I’m totally well!” Standing ovation, of course. However, on the Saturday late show, he was trying to encourage a guy to get up and sing with him, and the man wasn’t having it. After a few unsuccessful attempts, the man made a rude comment, and Tony reacted by calling the man an asshole. The word “asshole” reverberated as 2500 people came just short of fainting. Tony spent the rest of the show apologizing and dedicating every song to the man. So maybe Tony wasn’t “Totally” well after all.
We had a Sunday matinee show which turned out to be the worst one of the entire week, only encouraged by hearing that so confident a performer as Tony Orlando had wrestled with demons the night before. Thankfully, it was the smallest crowd we’d played to the whole week, but Ruby and I just amused ourselves onstage by quoting lines from Lenny Bruce’s “Comic at the Palladium” bit to each other. The audience wasn’t laughing, but at least WE were. As soon as we were done, we pretty much dashed through that aisle, ignoring the comments of all our “well-wishers.” I’m sure Tony did fine that day.
Our saving grace was a limo parked right outside the theatre, ready to rescue us immediately from this experience, and escort us to a (slightly) more comfortable stage. The wedding and most of the rest of the night went drunkenly and sillily, like weddings are supposed to be, or at least all of mine!
The post script to all that is, the marriage that her family had spent all that money to kick off only lasted a little more than two years. It was still an exciting time, as most of the time I was in that marriage was when the act was getting national acclaim. Working on my wedding day was probably not a good idea in the long run, no matter what the gig was, and it probably put a black cloud over the marriage that we weren’t going to get rid of. I was only 28 at the time, we’ll call that my excuse.

December 17th, 2014

About Rick Right

• Stand up comedian
• Musician
• Vinyl DJ
• Voice over artist
• Musicologist
• Writer