It was splendid– soldout room at the Suncoast. A good number of the attendees were intimately familiar with Shecky from his years of living in and dominating Vegas– people in the biz, folks who lived/still live in Vegas. The rest were familiar with him because he was in their living rooms on a regular basis by virtue of his appearances on television. Many had seen him live at nightclubs in their hometowns.
We went to the Will Call window to pick up our tickets. While we were just a few feet from the box office, examining our tickets and trying to determine where we’d be sitting, the man himself strolled by and warmly greeted a gaggle of women and escorted them away (old friends? relatives?). We briely considered collaring him right then and there, but we sensed that this was a sort of a homecoming and that the old pals from Chicago or Vegas took precedence over a couple of whacky kids with an internet magazine.
We grabbed a couple of Maker’s Marks and found our seats in the showroom.
Shecky was backed by a three-piece band (standup bass, piano and drums). With an offstage mike, he did his own intro, then strolled out onto the stage to a warm reception. Attired in a suit and tie (of course!), he was in fine voice and exhibited lots of energy. And his first joke was… topical! Who goes to see an 83-year-old comic and expects to see topical material? The set was tremendous– a stream-of-consciousness combination of reminscences, songs, impressions, story-telling, Yiddish, dialects, messing with the boys in the band and messing with the audience. He would leave a story at one point if it intersected with another (or if he happened to deem a second third or fourth story more worth pursuing at the moment), sometimes returning to the original thread, sometimes not. A few old jokes were thrown in, too. At times it was old school, at other times, it was contemporary. On one occasion he did an impression of Johnny Cash singing “If I Were A Rich Man” from Fiddler on the Roof. (Alternative? Yes! For an 83-year-old comic, certainly.)
Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Nat King Cole, Wayne Newton, Juliet Prowse, Sammy Davis, Jr.– all were invoked during his set. He elicited audience reactions at the mention of the Copacabana, the Latin Casino, his hometown of Chicago, the Riviera, the Sands, Dallas, TX, Palm Springs and Cicero, IL.
What was truly amazing is that, at one point or another, he used just about every device known to comedy to elicit a laugh– song parody, impression, singing impression, crowd work, street joke, setup/punchline, physical humor (dancing, funny walks, etc.), self-deprecation– and it all worked together seamlessly. He drew the audience in and held them for just over an hour.
Marty Allen and Shecky Greene at the party backstage.
And in the audience for this, his last show of the three-show engagement (his first gig in Vegas in ten years!), were a few other entertainers paying their respects– David Brenner, Rich Little, Cork Procter, Fielding West, Nelson Sardelli, Marty Allen, Johnny “The Great Tomsoni” Thompson. At about the hour mark, he pulled nearly all of them onstage to do a little time. Each performer also paid tribute to Greene. It was like a roast without the x-rated barbs.
Fielding West, The Female Half, The Male Half
At one point he repeated a joke. Trust us, it had absolutely nothing to do with the fact that he turned 83 years old on the 8th of April. He blamed it on the fact that he did a 20-minute set earlier in the day at a benefit show for Italian earthquake victims. We howled when he acknowledged it– as did the audience– and we also related to his explanation. And he conspired with the band to “recover” from the gaffe by doing a song. (We could relate– as he said to the crowd, and we paraphrase, “Sometimes, when you do two sets you can’t recall if what you’re doing now is what you did earlier!” Been there, done that! Especially on the rare three-show night!) We should all be so lucky to have the energy and vitality to do two shows on a Sunday at the age of 83!
He ended on a song and he received a spontaneous and obviously heartfelt standing ovation. We gotta figure that all three shows this weekend got a standing O. It was obvious that the booking was a rousing success and we suspect that, if he is so inclined, he’ll be back to Vegas again soon.
For some time after the show, a large knot of fans gathered at the doors just off the showroom to snap pictures with Greene. The atmosphere was like a reunion, a celebration. (Someone brought along a smashing photo of Shecky in high school, posing with his basketball team!) It reminded us of the time Shelley Berman performed at the Chicago Comedy Festival back in about 2001 or so– his first performance in his hometown in forever– that show, too, was attended by an army of old neighborhood friends, schoolmates, relatives and entertainment associates. A small backstage party gathered beyond the doors.
It obviously meant a lot to Shecky Greene. We were thrilled to be a small part of it.
David Brenner, far left, leaving the party backstage.