No Name Article
Written by Barbara Clark
With a Little Help From My Friends
December 1972
Note from Char: Here is a story written by Barbara Clark about us seeing John's concert at Madison Square Garden this past August. As stated before, the concerts were done as a benefit for Willowbrook Children's Hospital in New York. We all had a terrific time at the show, and since John is Barb's favorite, you can imagine what she was going through. Here's the story:
On August 30, Marie, Ann, and I met Char and Casey at Madison Square Garden in NYC, looking forward very nervously to seeing John in his two concerts at the Garden. To say we were excited would be an understatement. It was still early, and the first concert was to start at 2 o'clock, so we stopped at a deli, bought some nuts, got something to eat, and rode off to John's to maybe get a glimpse of John leaving. Nothing was going on at the house, so we left at 1 o'clock. There was already a crowd there, and people were selling John T-shirts and pictures of John and Yoko, saying "One to One" and "Willowbrook."
We split up at 1L30 and Marie, Ann, and I found our seats. When the lights went out, we moved down to other seats, much better than ours, to the side of the stage. Everyone was moving down. After we got our new seats, to which Geraldo Rivera said, "That's all right, it's a democratic society, you can move down. I love you all." He was the emcee of the concerts. He's a newsman for ABC TV, who started the One to One concerts going soon after Marie suggested it to him in April.
Well, after a long delay (almost an hour and a half) Sha Na Na came on. They're really a great group. They do old '50s songs, including "Get a Job", "Whole Lot of Shaking", "Tell Laura I Love Her", etc. Well, then after another very long delay came Stevie Wonder, dressed in a long brown robe, playing piano and drums. He was great too. Only I think it would have been better if he did some of his more popular songs instead of the long instrumental ones. Then, after the longest delay, Geraldo came on and said, "And here's one of our favorite groups from the streets of New York, because I would be with them if I could sing--- the Elephant's Memory Band!" Everyone cheered and screamed, expecting to see John up there, but when the lights went on, all that was up there was the band, but no John. Then we saw May Pang (John's secretary) go down the steps, then John kneeling down by the steps. The lights went out, then Geraldo said "John and Yoko!" The lights were still out when the record "Power to the People" started playing. Everyone stood up and yelled, then the lights went on, and we saw John in the same state on the stage singing "New York City."
John looked fantastic as usual. He wore black-and-white cowboy boots, his green jacket (the one with the stripes on his arms), round blue sunglasses, and green trousers. He looked great, but a bit nervous. In singing "New York City", he said the words instead of singing them, but toward the end he was starting to sing it and bouncing on the stage, really having fun.
He had three guitars on stage, and he kept changing them. Once when he put on his black and white guitar, he jumped up, and the guitar strap fell off, the guitar dropped, but John caught it as it was falling, but not acting like the old John, he just fixed it. He didn't joke around like I expected him to do.
He really was nervous at the day show. The other songs he did were "Instant Karma", "Mother", "Imagine", "It's So Hard " among others. During Yoko's song, "Open Your Box" (which is a naughty, suggestive song), he kept spreading his legs apart, and once even pulled down his zipper, laughing and all. The last song he did was "Hound Dog", the audience went wild as John started imitating Elvis. It was very heavy. John drank about two cans of Miller beer during the show. After "Hound Dog", he ran off the stage, leaving the Elephant's Memory Band up there. Everyone was clapping and yelling "more" when Geraldo came back, saying they weren't coming back, but still everyone yelled for more. He said the electricity was costing more every second, and it was all coming out of the Willowbrook Fund. So everyone calmed down at this, and eventually people started leaving.
There were just as many delays at the night show, but I think John was even better. Roberta Flack was at the night show, and John didn't come on until 12 midnight. When he did, everyone stood up and yelled. Me, Marie, Ann, and Char were in the orchestra now, close to the stage, but with all the people standing up, it was hard to see. So, Marie and I stood on our chairs, very desperate for a chance to see John. We were the only ones on chairs, and he looked in our direction, but I don't know if he could recognize us from before. He was too stoned, anyway, maybe.
He was more relaxed now, really having a great time. During "Come Together", he laid on this big act, waving his hands, pointing his finger, acting and talking like a homo, the whole bit. During "Mother", he got really emotional and said, "A lot of people think the song is about my parents, but it's not. It's about 99% of the parents alive or half dead." When he got to "Father", he sang, "I needed you so bad." It sounded as if he was crying. It was very emotional.
In "Sisters, oh Sisters", Yoko said, "Now's our chance to change the world," in a typical Yoko accent. Most of her songs, she tried to sing, but when she found it wasn't working too well, she resorted to just screaming. Sometimes during the concert, people passed around tambourines, which advertised restaurants in New York. At the end, they did "Hound Dog" again, and then "Give Peace a Chance", which all the performers joined in on stage, including Melanie, David Peel, Stevie Wonder, and Geraldo.
After the show, John showed up at the party around 3 am (Barbara took off for the party quickly after John left the stage.) Bob Dylan, David Peel, the whole John crowd was there. John went into a private section of the bar (the Tavern on the Green at 67th and Central Park West in the city). Vidal Sassoon also showed up (with dirty hair), and of course, all the acts in the show. The crowd inside the bar, which served lasagna, rice, Coke, and wine, finally thinned out, and John left the scene around 4:30am.
What a day and night!
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