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- Sounds of Philly
- April 10, 1999
I went to that "Sounds of Philly" concert last night. The whole
thing lasted about 4 hours. There were many acts, starting out with people that you never
heard much of before and leading up towards the most famous. One of the acts was Littlle
Peggy March. They said it was her first US appearance in 20 years and she sounded great.
Other acts were The Tramps, Freddy "Boom Boom" Cannon, Jerry Butler, Lee Andrews
and the Hearts, The Stylistics, The Tymes, Fabian, Jerry Butler and Bobby Rydell (and a
couple others I never heard of before).
Bobby was the last act. They had big screens hanging in the center of the stadium and
showed clips from "Bye Bye Birdie" before he came out. ("We Hate You
Conrad," "One Boy" and "Lot of Livin' to Do") He sang Wild One,
Sway, Forget Him, Swinging School, Wildwood Days and Volare. He also had the Carmen Dee
Orchestra with him--the band that he recorded with on the "Forget Him" album and
that he has been working with on and off since his old days in Palumbo's in South Philly.
Bobby did not have any back-up singers with him (he usually doesn't) so my uncle and I had
fun sitting in the stands singing all the back up parts. You know, all the
"Whoa-Whoa's," "La-La's" and of course "Oh, Bobby, oh,
everything's cool. We're glad you go to a swinging school." Pretty soon we had other
people in our section singing along with us. It was pretty funny. My uncle was very funny,
he was screaming out, "What a cheap joint!! They can't even hire any girls to sing
back-up for Rydell!"
There were two girls sitting next to me who were about my age or maybe in their early 30s.
They screamed through Bobby's whole segment, just like the girls used to on
"Bandstand."
He usually does a medley from "Birdie" in his act, but did not do it last night.
His segment was actually kind of short. I think the concert ran longer than suspected and
they were trying to hurry up and wrap it up.
--Doug
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