Today, October 9, 2011, marks the anniversary of the last time I saw Frank Sinatra in concert at Copps Coliseum in Hamilton, Ontario in 1993. It would also be the last time that Sinatra came to Canada. So, I’m only 18 years late writing about that concert and one week late writing about the 22nd anniversary of Frank Sinatra & Liza Minelli at the SkyDome in Toronto on October 2, 1989. Most of this blahg will be dedicated to the Skydome concert because, as usual, I have a personal story related to that concert. Like any good story, this one needs a lead-in and I’ll have to back up a year or so to tell it.
It was late 1987 and Sinatra had not been back to Toronto since the CNE 1984 concert (see my last post). That Labor Day weekend concert in ’84 had not gone well for Mr. S. and fans were still waiting for the encore. I have posted some of the letters to the editor of the Toronto Star following the CNE concert. I did not include these in my last post but thought I’d post them here to show the last sentiments regarding Sinatra’s previous trip here. 
Click on the image to see a larger print of it. The only other Canadian stop for Sinatra in the ensuing years had been April 3, 1986 at the Pacific Coliseum in Vancouver.
In December 1987, at Chasen’s restaurant in Los Angeles, Sinatra, Sammy Davis, and Dean Martin announced a 29 date tour, called Together Again. This was exciting news for me, not just that the big three were touring together again, but because Vancouver was announced as one of the 29 stops. Could Toronto be selected for a stop in a second round of dates? I could only hope. I was married in 1987 and by the time the Together Again tour was announced, I was living and working only 30 minutes north of Toronto. I knew getting tickets and getting to the concert would be a cake walk compared to my ordeal in 1984. Sadly, Dean Martin dropped out of the tour in the spring of 1988 and Sinatra & Sammy continued on alone for some of the 1988 dates. There would be no Toronto concert and my hopes were dashed. After all, there was 4300 kilometers (approximately 2700 miles) between Toronto and Vancouver and I couldn’t get that kind of time off work.
I would eventually make it to Vancouver in 1992 for a friend’s wedding. 
It would be an 8 day drive in a 1988 Cavalier station-wagon with my wife and two year old daughter who broke out with chickenpox the day we left…but that’s another story. Jump to the summer of 1989 and a full-page ad appears in the Toronto Star (see image at left). Frank Sinatra and Sammy Davis were touring together again but with Liza Minelli and billing themselves as The Ultimate Event. ..AND TORONTO WAS ANNOUNCED FOR OCTOBER 2nd!!
(Don’t Forget To Click On Images To See Larger Version)
I’m going to divert a little from this story in a minute to a side story that played itself out during the time leading up to this concert but I’ll detail a little about the venue and the tickets. The concert was to be held in the newly built SkyDome. I didn’t know much about the SkyDome only that it was the new stadium that was the playing field of the Toronto Blue Jays baseball team. Previously, they had played at the CNE grounds which had been where Sinatra had played when he was last in Toronto. I knew that other artists had performed concerts at the SkyDome as well but I knew nothing about the acoustics nor the layout of seats. I knew, however, that it was a closed stadium, except when they rolled back the roof of the SkyDome on sunny days. This was significant to me because I had been soaked by rain at the CNE concert in 1984. This also meant that I could take a chance on the top price tickets because I would stay dry.
Getting tickets to the SkyDome concert was a lot easier than it had been in 1984. I was living closer to Toronto so I could have travelled to a ticket seller quite easily. It was made even easier than that because the small print in the advertisement stated that tickets could be obtained over the telephone. Top tickets were running for $75 and I really wanted these. My wife was supportive of this but we had friends who weren’t as economically inclined as we were. My best friend Bryan and his wife still lived in Belleville, two hours east of Toronto, and, factoring in travel to Toronto, could only afford $50 tickets. 
I wasn’t going to let that prevent me from getting good seats. So, I purchased four $75 tickets and told my friend that we had purchased $50 tickets. My wife and I paid the difference and lied to our friends that we had been sent $75 tickets by mistake. So Bryan, if you are reading this, and I know you are, the truth comes out at last. And no, you don’t owe me the difference of $50. I’ll just settle for a good steak lunch.
So we had good seats, in principle, and this is where I’ll divert to the side story.
Back in 1989, I was a subscriber to The Sinatra Society of America and their newsletter. In their May 1989 newsletter I spotted an ad for the ‘Together Again’ Tour Book, Tee-Shirt & Poster. The advertisement said I could get all three of these collectors’ items for the cost of $25 plus postage. All I had to do was send a money order to Gary Labriola at Premier Artists Agency in Florida (see advertisement at left). What a deal! I may have missed the Together Again Tour when it had played in Vancouver but I would at least have some great souvenirs to add to my collection. 
I immediately sent a money order to the advertised address in the amount of $30 hoping that the additional $5 would cover the shipping cost. I received nothing. Many months went by and I heard nothing. I wrote at least twice to Mr. Labriola at Premier Artists and received no reply. I contacted my local post office and there was nothing they could do because I had not received any tracking information because I had received any correspondence at all. By the end of 1988, I was sure I was out the $30 and would never receive the advertised items.
In January of 1989 I decided to contact The Sinatra Society of America to see if they knew of any problems associated with the deal. I received a reply in early February stating that they knew of no problems but I could contact Mr. Labriola by telephone and the Sinatra Society provided me with his number. I telephoned Premier Artists at least twice in the months following but each time Mr. Labriola was not available but I was assured that he would return my call. Again I heard nothing. In April I wrote one more letter outlining my frustration and provided my new address as I had moved to a new apartment a few blocks away. Guess what I heard? Nothing! You’re a good guesser.
In the summer of 1989 I decided to try something else. A year had passed and I was sure I would never hear directly from Mr. Labriola. I contacted Star Probe which was a consumer advocate column running in the Toronto Star that helped readers with problems they couldn’t resolve on their own. I provided them with copies of all correspondence, the original advertisement, my money order, and contact information for Premier Artists. Star Probe, in turn, contacted Premier Artists. In July I received an irate call from Mr. Labriola who did not appreciate the interference by Star Probe and he further claimed that he had no record of letters or phone calls from me regarding this issue. He did say that he would fill my order if stock was available or issue a refund if I could prove that Premier Artists had cashed my money order.
So, back to Canada Post with my original money order receipt and I have them do a trace on it. They provided me with a photocopy showing that the money order had indeed been cashed by Premier Artists. I sent this photocopy by mail to Premier Artists and received a phone call in late August. Originally they were not going to replace anything nor issue a refund as they said they had proof that the original order had been shipped to my previous address more than a year before that. Of course, when pressed, they didn’t feel it necessary to provide me with the proof that the items had been mailed out. All of my mail from my previous address was still being forwarded to my new apartment and I believed that it wasn’t a problem with my local postal system. I was very insistent with Premier Artists and told them I would not let this issue drop and that if I needed to get Star Probe involved again I would and that I would also issue a statement to The Sinatra Society of America recommending that Sinatra fans should not deal with Premier Artists and Gray Labriola. That seemed to hit a nerve because they agreed to resend my order.
If you think it ended happily there, you will be surprised by what happened next. I was told that unfortunately the tee-shirt of the Together Again Tour was no longer available but they were willing to substitute an Ultimate Event Tour tee-shirt instead. I readily agreed to this as I knew that it would suit me well at the SkyDome concert in October. I was disappointed about the replacement but I did manage to acquire a Together Again Tour shirt a few years later through Ebay. The package containing the Together Again Tour program, poster, and Ultimate Event tee-shirt arrived near the end of August. Unfortunately Premier Artists struck out with me again. The items were contained in a padded envelope that was at least 12 inches shorter than the poster in the package. Premier Artists had torn a gap in the top of the envelope and left the poster sticking out. This caused the top portion of the poster to be mangled in the mailing process. 
Why they didn’t fold the poster or provide proper shipping material is beyond me. At this point, I was glad to at least have anything after waiting more than a year. I didn’t complain further but updated Star Probe with the results. You can read the Star Probe article above and see the damaged poster at left.
Well, now I had tickets and a tee-shirt for The Ultimate Event. That should have been the end of the ordeal. It wasn’t, but at least it was the end of the side story and the problems with Premier Artists. 
One oddity that occurred shortly after this was that I received, by mail, an autographed photo of Frank Sinatra in an envelope that was post-marked California. There was no letter inside and I never found out who sent it. In my imagination, I believe someone connected with Sinatra read the Star Probe article and sent me this consolation gift. I say thank you to the kindness of strangers.
As many of you may know by now, Sammy became ill in 1989 and had to bow out of the Ultimate Event. Toronto was one of the stops where Sammy would not be present. This was even more disheartening to me than Dean dropping out of the Reunion Tour and the whole ordeal with Premier Artists combined. Still, we had Frank and Liza and it had to be better than that rainy night at the CNE in 1984.
I don’t remember what the weather was like the night of October 2, 1989 but it doesn’t matter because the storm was inside the Skydome. When the four of us arrived, we discovered that our seats, although billed as top seats, were way up in the near nosebleed section. I say “near nosebleed section” because there really was a nosebleed section so high up that if someone had dropped something at the beginning of the concert, it probably wouldn’t have landed until some time after Sinatra was safely on the plane ride home. Suffice it to say, I could not see Frank and Liza with the naked eye. Thank heavens for the Jumbotron Screen or I wouldn’t have seen anything at all.
Inside the SkyDome they had draped some huge fabric to make what they advertised as a ‘Skytent’. I don’t know what the real purpose of this was because it sure had nothing to do with the acoustics. The sound was dismal! The only thing you could really hear well was the beeping of the french-fry machine at the McDonald’s in the SkyDome which was inconveniently near our seats. For some reason, the $75 seats ranged from ground level up to where we were and did not come with a free side order of fries. I had expected better.
As for the concert itself, Sinatra and Minelli performed brilliantly despite the acoustics and the insects swirling around Sinatra’s head. When Liza came out for the closing medley she was armed with a can of bug spray and it got the biggest applause of the night. It was all moot to me because Sinatra and Minelli looked like insects themselves at the bottom of a big bowl to any of us if we looked away from the Jumbotron. 
It was a good lengthy concert and I’m not knocking the concert or the artists. However, I had gotten soaked once more when Sinatra had come back to Toronto. I was sure Sinatra was going to get hammered in the press again. It wasn’t his fault though. It was a Skytent experiment that had gone horribly wrong. You can read the reviews for yourself.
On the way out, I heard many complaints from other patrons and some asking where they could go to get their money back. I also received some compliments on my Ultimate Event tee-shirt that I had worn to the concert. Someone asked me where I purchased it as he thought there were souvenir vendors in the SkyDome. I explained it was a long story but the short version was you couldn’t get it there. I still have the shirt but I’ve never worn it since. It’s bagged and put away with the Together Again Tour tee-shirt I purchased online years later.
Sinatra would come back again to Toronto twice more and I’m happy to say that each time was better than the CNE and SkyDome concerts. In November of 1991 he came to Maple Leaf Gardens with Steve Lawrence & Eydie Gorme for the Diamond Jubilee Tour. 
It didn’t matter that he had seemed to age significantly in the two years since the SkyDome. 
He sang the songs we wanted to hear and my wife and I had good seats. We didn’t need a Jumbotron. When he finally left the stage, he passed within a few yards of me. I wish cameras had been allowed at that concert as I would have had a great shot.
The last time Sinatra came to Canada was in 1993. 
Sinatra and Don Rickles performed at Copps Coliseum on October 9, 1993 in Hamilton, about an hour west of Toronto. It was a charity event for the Kidney Foundation. By this time, our little family had moved back to Belleville and Hamilton was a three hour drive away. My wife was pregnant with our second child and wasn’t really up to that long drive. 
So it became a boys’ night out as Bryan and I purchased tickets and drove the three hours to Hamilton. It was a great night and a great concert. Rickles was hilarious and Sinatra was dynamite. I think it was the best performance I had seen out of the four concerts of his that I had attended. Our seats were so good that Bryan kept thinking we were in the wrong seats and was sure we would be asked to move. Given his experience at the Skydome and our poor seating there, I’m not surprised by his reaction. Sinatra’s farewell performance in Canada was a good note to go out on. If I had only known that less than two years later he would stop touring and that less than five years later he would be dead, I would have found a way to get to more of his concerts no matter where he played.
Mr. Sinatra, you are missed.