This last Sunday, October 2nd, 2011, marked the 22nd anniversary of Frank Sinatra & Liza Minelli at the Skydome in Toronto in 1989. I hope I don’t have to explain that Toronto is in Canada but I’ll put that out there and I will also mention that the Skydome is now called The Rogers Centre; same building, different name. Clear?
I wanted to speak about that Skydome concert in this post because I was there but after writing this post, I found it was a little long so part two “Do You Want Fries With That?” will be posted on Sunday, which coincidentally is the anniversary of the last time I saw Sinatra in Concert. I want to, however, speak about the first time I saw Sinatra in Concert and how my passion for Sinatra almost got me killed. But let’s go back a ways first.
I grew up on classic movies as a young man. That’s not to say that I’m not young now except I did mention in my first blahg that would be 50 next year but that doesn’t matter. So, I was young and I liked classic movies. My dad always hated this because we always had a colour television when I was growing up and he would always complain about shelling out good money on a colour set to see it wasted on me watching something in black and white. Oh, it was okay if it was a John Wayne movie…but I digress.
I’m not saying anything negative about my father because he was the one that got me started on Sinatra. I remember he came home one day from some auction with a box of records he had purchased for a dollar. I can’t remember all of what was in that box but I do remember there were some jazz records, a great Bing Crosby album where Bing paired up with Rosemary Clooney titled “Fancy Meeting You Here” (great LP and it deserves it’s own blahg…hmmmm), and one Frank Sinatra album. That Sinatra album, which started it all, was on the Columbia label and was aptly titled “Frankie”. 
I still have that record but it’s probably a little more worn than the rest of the Sinatra records in my vast collection. Hundreds of records and CDs later, I’m still collecting Sinatra. So it should come as no surprise that I wanted to see the man in concert.
Sinatra had played in Canada before in the 70s at some great venues like the Montreal Forum in Montreal and Maple Leaf Gardens in Toronto. If I recall correctly though, I had acquired that box of records sometime after Sinatra’s last concert dates in Canada during 1976. Sinatra was in three cities in Canada in 1976, starting with Maple Leaf Gardens on May 1st, then the Pacific Coliseum in Vancouver on August 21st, and finally Montreal again on October 15th. I was only 13 at the time and I don’t think the desire to see Sinatra had hit me by then. The next opportunity to see Sinatra in Canada was September 11th, 1982 in Ottawa at the Central Canada Exhibition. He was performing with Rich Little in a benefit for the Ottawa Civic Hospital. I had read about it in our local paper and I really wanted to go. Unfortunately that was my first week of my first year of University at Trent University in Peterborough and I couldn’t afford to skip off to Ottawa. Now in hindsight, I guess I should have applied to an Ottawa university but then I wouldn’t have met my wife…and that’s another story altogether.
(Click any of the images to view a larger version)
The next chance I had to see Sinatra was September 2nd, 1984 at the Canadian National Exhibition (CNE) in Toronto. This was an opportunity I wasn’t going to miss out on. I wouldn’t be returning to University until a week after that and I had a job that summer, so I knew I could swing it. Little did I know that this was an adventure that would almost cost me my life.
The adventure began with the ticket. The problem with the ticket wasn’t the price but the vendor. I lived two hours away from Toronto in my hometown of Belleville and there was no way to get a ticket locally. This was before big ticket vendors like Ticketmaster opened stores or kiosks across Canada and at least a decade before the Internet. The Toronto Star newspaper, had printed a coupon that I could use to receive $5 off the admission to the concert but it had to be presented at the CNE Grandstand box office or at any Bass ticket outlet. Don’t ask me what Bass was as I didn’t know then and I don’t know now. All I knew at that time was that I had to get to Toronto to get the ticket before they sold out.
That summer of 1984, I was working the midnight shift at Farrar’s Texaco in Belleville. I sat in a kiosk and took people’s money because the station was self-serve only. It wasn’t hard but it meant that I slept all day after I got home at 8 in the morning. I didn’t have a car and I knew my bicycle wasn’t going to get me to Toronto. My father wasn’t about to drive me and lose a day’s pay himself. I checked out bus service and that was out of the question because I wouldn’t get back in time for work. So I looked into the train and found a schedule that would work for me but it was going to be tight.
Train service between Belleville and Toronto was not frequent but there was a train that got me into Toronto around 3:30pm and another train that would depart Toronto for home, at 4:30pm. That’s right, I had one hour to get my ticket and get back to the train station so I could get home and maybe get some more sleep before heading off to work that night. It was an insane plan to start because I had no idea where the CNE Grandstand box office but I at least knew that the Bass ticket outlet was somewhere in the Eaton’s Centre. Unfortunately it’s a big mall smack dab in downtown Toronto and I was taking a big chance and hoping that I could find the outlet, get the ticket, and get back to the train station in time. The next train didn’t leave until evening and I wasn’t taking a chance on missing it and being late for work.
The day I took the train was at least bright and sunny and on time. When I got to Toronto, I took a subway immediately to the Eaton’s Centre and searched the directory listing for the Bass ticket outlet. I noted the location and ran through the mall to where it should have been. That’s right, it wasn’t there. Instead, there was a note on an empty store window stating that the Bass ticket outlet was now located in Sam The Record Man, one block north of the Eaton’s Centre. So I was off and running again.
Someday I should write a blahg about Sam The Record Man as it once was a huge record store chain across Canada. Its flagship store in Toronto was impressive at three floors with everything from cassettes to records and some videos thrown in. Alas, the flagship store and the chain are gone now. The only Sam The Record Man left is in my hometown of Belleville and I’m glad to say that the current store owner is a big Sinatra fan. I still shop there and it still carries some vinyl. But back to the story.
I ran that block to Sam’s in record time and found that the Bass outlet was indeed there in a sub-basement. I presented my coupon and purchased one of the $30 seats at the discount of $25. I had wished I could have afforded the $75 seat but even with a coupon, it was out of the price range of this University student. Later, I would be glad I didn’t purchase a $75 ticket but given the money I had already spent on the train just to buy the ticket, I couldn’t justify the extra cost.
After purchasing the ticket, I ran back a block south to catch the subway but found that there was a delay on the subway line. I knew I couldn’t afford any delay, so I started running south toward the train station and trying to flag a taxi at the same time. After a couple of blocks, I managed to catch a taxi and made it to the train station with 10 minutes to spare. I think I slept all the way back to Belleville because I was exhausted…but happy.
Okay, so I was into this Sinatra concert already for the $25 ticket, $30 for the round trip train ride, $1 for the subway, and an additional $5 for cab fare. A few days after this, I realized I’d need to stay overnight in Toronto because there wouldn’t be a train back to Belleville after the concert was over. So I booked a room at the Ramada Hotel near Maple Leaf Gardens at the cost of $75. Already this was starting to cost me more than the top ticket price to the concert. I would also have to spring for another round trip ticket just to go to Toronto to see the concert. But I didn’t care because you don’t get to see Sinatra every day!
I managed to get a couple days off from work and took the train to Toronto on the day of the concert. This was really a big deal for me because I had never stayed in a hotel room by myself let alone in a big city like Toronto. The Ramada Hotel was about a block’s walk east from the Subway stop near Maple Leaf Gardens. I checked in sometime in the mid-afternoon and then went back downtown to Sam The Record Man to check out the deals. I don’t remember if I bought anything that day but it was only a few blocks south of where I was staying and I had to kill some time. This we call filler.
That evening, when I was preparing to leave for the concert, I checked with the front desk to find out how to get to the CNE Grandstand. The desk clerk wrote it out for me on a piece of paper because I would have to take a streetcar and change to another streetcar to get to the CNE grounds. The only thing he neglected to tell me was that the Streetcar was exact change only. In Belleville, the bus drivers still made change. The Streetcar driver wouldn’t even let me on without exact change. So I went back to the hotel and tried to acquire correct change but they couldn’t help me. The best they could suggest was to try a local variety store a block to the east of the hotel.
I started walking a block east but after having gone a block, I found no store. I couldn’t see one in the distance and I didn’t want to miss the start of the concert so I headed back west toward the hotel with the intention of walking a block west of the hotel to see if there was somewhere that I could get the correct change I needed. As I approached the street corner just before the hotel, an individual rounded the corner and almost collided with me. He was about my age but that’s where the resemblance stopped. 
He had on green fatigue clothing, was adorned with a couple of earrings in one ear, and sported a very large blue Mohawk haircut. I’m no prude and today that type of attire is pretty commonplace in Toronto but in 1984 it looked like trouble…and it was.
When I noticed that this individual was coming straight toward me, I stepped to the right, and he stepped to the right. I stepped to the left and he stepped to the left. I thought it was one of those awkward dances you perform with a stranger when you’re both trying to get out of each other’s way but keep going the same way each time you move. This was no dance. I tried to laugh it off and excuse myself but his motions were more intentional. “My name’s Nathan and I’m going to kill you.” Well, at least he got right to the point. He had an Australian accent but that was nothing to hold against him. I also wasn’t sure if he was serious because the street was full of pedestrians so I wasn’t sure how he was going to kill me so discretely.
I explained that I thought he had me confused with someone else but he only replied that his mates (his word, not mine) had told him that I wanted to fight him. I didn’t see any mates and I certainly didn’t want to wait around for them. It’s bad enough to take on one tough looking individual but I wasn’t up to the challenge of a gang. I explained again that I thought there was some confusion here as I didn’t know him and that I wasn’t from Toronto and probably didn’t know his friends. That didn’t concern him. He just repeated that his mates had said I wanted to fight and that he was going to kill me. At this point, correct change and Sinatra were far from my mind.
I’m a quick thinker at most times and I’m happy to say that this was one of those times. I told him that I wasn’t going to fight him right there in the open so he responded by encouraging me to get my friends and he would get his and they’d kill us all. I told him that my friends were back at the hotel and that if he came with me then we could get them and then we’d go with him to find his mates. I was surprised when he agreed to this because I was sure he knew that I was bluffing. All I wanted was to get off the street and get somewhere so I could get some help. None of the other people on the street were coming to my aid and I thought if I could get him back to the hotel then maybe someone would come to my rescue.
On the way back to the hotel, Nathan kept uttering his death threats. I was glad we were on a first name basis although I probably didn’t give my correct name. Let the coroner sort that one out, I thought. Back in the hotel lobby, I started to make motions as if looking for my friends. Meanwhile, Nathan got louder and louder with his impatience and his threats. People started to look at us strangely. This was good. I don’t know if anyone at the hotel called the police or any kind of security because I never saw them. My rescue came from a young woman who ran into the hotel and started grabbing at Nathan’s arm and trying to remove him from the hotel. Nathan explained that this was his girlfriend and she didn’t want him to be in any more trouble with the police because he was already headed to court in a couple of weeks. She managed to calm him down and eventually got him to retreat form the hotel. Before leaving though, he turned to me and said I was lucky this time that his girlfriend had arrived or he would have killed me. He also demanded I give him a dollar. I told him I didn’t have a dollar. He left. It’s a good thing he did leave because I would have bored him to death with the story of why I didn’t have a dollar and the whole thing about having to look for exact change. He got off lucky. So did I.
I don’t have to tell you I was shaking profusely but I managed to collect myself and get back to the task at hand of getting to that concert. There was a cab outside the hotel and I immediately jumped in and asked to be taken to the CNE. I didn’t care about the cost anymore. We made it in about 15 minutes with another 15 minutes left before the concert started. I had made it…alive.
The CNE is an annual exposition held every year in Toronto with the requisite amount of games and food stalls and an impressive midway of rides. I had never seen anything quite like it before and I would have taken more time to have been impressed if I wasn’t already pressed for time. I started to walk across the Exhibition grounds toward the Grandstand when it started to pour rain. It wasn’t just a light sprinkle, it poured. I was sure that the concert would be rained out. The Grandstand was an open bandshell affair with only a cement overhang over the upper seats. Luckily my seat was in the upper section. I was still wet by the time I got to my seat but at least the overhang provided some protection.
My seat was at the end of a row butted up against a cement wall for part of an exit. You could only access it from the far left and that meant excusing myself to everyone as I tried to make it along the row to my seat at the end. Of course, there was another entry if I was willing to shinny along the top of the cement wall and then drop into my seat. I didn’t care. Given the night I had been having, what was one more adventure?
I made my way along the top of the wall and before dropping into the vacant seat, I confirmed with the occupant next to it that it was indeed my seat number. Learning that it was my seat, I dropped down and sat relieved that there was nothing to prevent me now from seeing Sinatra. The young lady in the seat next to me, a beautiful blonde about my then age, was there with her parents and throughout the concert kept letting me borrow her binoculars to look closely at Sinatra. The gesture and the company helped greatly to relieve what had been a dismal experience just getting there.
When I arrived, Buddy Rich was already hammering away on his drums. Man, could that cat perform. All the time, it continued to pour rain and the sky lit up with lightning. It still nagged at me that the concert would be cancelled at any minute. Ten minutes later, Sinatra took the stage. Everything I had been through up to that point melted away. Nothing mattered, it was Sinatra. He was performing for me; oh yeah, and for those people in the open in the $75 seats getting soaked. I told you I would be glad I hadn’t sprung for a more costly ticket.
The concert was great despite what you can read in the reviews. Here was Sinatra, in the pouring rain, no protection, with lightning flashing all around, and him just singing as if this was all commonplace to him. I kept thinking “my god, he’s standing in a puddle, it’s pissing down rain, and he’s holding a metal stand, he’s going to get electrocuted.” If there’s anything to the old adage that the show must go on, Sinatra lived by it. It was as if nothing phased him. 
He sang some of the songs from his new album, “L.A. Is My Lady” and thrilled the audience with some great standards. I think the greatest thrills were when he sang songs that mentioned the rain. When he sang “Come Rain or Come Shine” and “Pennies From Heaven” with the opening line, ‘Every time it rains, it rains, pennies from heaven’, more cheers went up from the crowd than when he belted out “New York, New York.” The only thing that would have made it perfect was if he had performed “September in the Rain” or “Stormy Weather.”
The whole concert only lasted 46 minutes. Sinatra left the stage and within a minute, you could see his limo, followed by a police car, driving off to drier parts unknown. Many people were upset about the shortness of the concert but not me. I had almost died and I had gotten soaked by rain but those were the only downsides. In the plus column, I had lived, I had made it to the concert, I had sat beside a beautiful girl, and I had seen and heard Sinatra live in concert. I had no complaints.
A few years later I met a man named Don Robinson who had also attended that CNE concert. Don was the host of a two hour Sunday evening Jazz program called “All That Jazz” on Kingston’s CFLY radio station. Don told me that he and three of his friends had been in those $75 seats and were soaked to the skin by the end of the concert. They had to remove their pants and sit on newspapers for the car ride back to Kingston. He said he was glad he wasn’t stopped by the police because he didn’t think they would have believed his story. I’ve lost track of Don over the years and would love to hear from him again if he’s still out there.
My night at the hotel after the concert and the trip home the next day by train were anti-climactic except for one thing. After the concert I realized that I still did not have correct change. I looked for another taxi but due to the rain, they were all quickly snatched up. There was nothing I could do but walk. In the pouring rain, in the dark of night, up strange streets to me, I legged it back in the direction toward my hotel. I think it took me more than an hour. Today, I wouldn’t walk strange streets in Toronto at night but after seeing Sinatra doing his bit for us at the risk of his own life, I didn’t think twice about putting mine into jeopardy again. Luckily, the walk back to the hotel was uneventful. As a footnote, I tried to find out who that girl was who had been seated next to me. I sent a letter to the editor of the Toronto Star and they published it. 
I mentioned my seat number and her seat number and that I would like to hear from her. I never heard from her. Instead, a month later, at school, I would meet the girl I would eventually marry. Not a bad consolation prize.
A number of years later, another Sinatra collector would send me an audio bootleg tape of the concert. It’s still one of my favorites. For a few years after that concert, I knew where the ticket stub was from that great night but over the ensuing years, it’s the only ticket stub I’ve lost. I still have the stubs from the other Sinatra concerts I attended but that one escapes me. I vaguely remember putting it somewhere safe like between the pages of a book. I have hundreds of books so narrowing it down to which book has never been a task I wanted to take on. Maybe if I start rereading all of those books, I’ll find it. Perhaps, I should pay one of my children to shake out all of those books to see what falls out. What’s another cost added to the history of that particular concert? It only cost me about $200 and almost my life. Is that too much to ask?
[…] Sinatra at the Canadian National Exhibition (CNE) in September of 1984. That previous blahg was SINATRA ALMOST GOT ME KILLED and you’ll really have to read that blahg in order to understand the title. The blahg was […]