- Detroit Masonic Auditorium -

Judy Performance Lifts 
Her Listeners Over the Rainbow
By Josef Mossman, The Detroit News

The perennial girl next door, but a consummate artist who can twist 4,000 people around her finger easy as pie, nearly kept Masonic Auditorium open till dawn today. 

Judy Garland finished her concert around 10:30 last night, and it was one of the most strenuous concerts any solo performer ever gave. But the crowd wasn't even close to going home.

They cheered, they yelled, they stood up and yelled some more, they swarmed into the orchestra pit to reach across the footlights for a handshake from her.

It was one of the most moving and memorable tributes a performer could receive.

Judy Garland was a bit older than she was in the Andy Hardy movies in the 30's, but nobody remembered that time had passed when she sang some of her best loved hits - "Clang! Clang! Clang! Went the Trolley," for one.

And when she finally sang "Over the Rainbow," it was one of those moments when theater magic is at its most potent, a moment that people tell their grandchildren about.

While she sang "Zing Went the Strings of My Heart," she danced, with some high kicks too. Miss Garland was no Pavlova, but nobody in the hall would have traded her for a dozen Pavlov's.

"Over the Rainbow" was, of course, the concerts climax, according to the design, but the audience wanted more, and Miss Garland was willing to give more.

She came back to sing "Swanee" and then "Chicago," and the curtain stayed down, possibly because stagehands didn't have the strength left for any more curtain calls.

Accompanied by a splendid orchestra of more than 30 men, playing wonderfully fine arrangements under Mort Lindsey's direction, Miss Garland started the show with "When You're Smiling," and the crowd grew more ecstatic with every song.

In the first half, the sound system was at a peak of volume that became thunderously torturous, and Miss Garland didn't get a fair hearing.

But the sound was adjusted for the second half to show Miss Garland what she is, one of the most appealing performers in the history of popular song.

After she finished "Almost Like Falling in Love," she said, "Look, I've got a frog in my throat and I need a hankie. I'll be right back and you can talk to each other or something."

She came back promptly and got as hearty an ovation as if she had just finished singing "Aida" at the Met. Later she helped move the piano. She flopped into a chair for a few songs.

A time or two, she turned her back on the crowd to confer with the orchestra, and scratched herself, probably the first time in history that an itch on the posterior became a matter of theatrical triumph.

Was it planned? Or was it spontaneous? Who cares? A great part of the wonder of Judy Garland is that she is not suave nor calculating. Or if she is, nobody in her audiences will ever know.

She and the crowd were perfectly matched - both were indefatigable. She sang more than 30 songs, belting some of them out with the power dynamics of earth-moving machinery , crooning some of them in a voice of ineffable sweetness.

A calculating performer would have called a halt after half as much effort as Miss Garland put forth.

A calculating performer might have chosen clothes with more vanity, for her black dress with blue jacket in the first half, and the sequined blouse and black slacks - "pants" she called them - in the second half, were not what a vain woman would have chosen. 

She was plumpish, but still closer to being slender, than she has been in several years. To her loyal fans, she was beautiful.

But no one had to be a ritualistic fan to realize that she was radiant, with a radiance that came from the heart of one of the greatest singers of our time.
 
 

Judy Garland came to Detroit's Masonic Auditorium Friday night to remind people of the days when their hearts had never been broken and the world was young. 

Nobody was willing to let her go until audience and Judy were both exhausted.

Well, I tell you they like tore the place apart when Judy was finished...  Elvis Presley has had his moments there and Jascha Heifetz, but there never has been such a scene of thousands of people with tears in their eyes, on their feet, straining forward, begging to have the moment kept golden for them just a little time longer.

Except maybe the last time Garland was here.

There isn't much point of going into the technical details of Garlands singing.

Her performance probably owes a lot to things like good intonation and an ability to make her voice wobble when she wants it to or turn it into an oboe-like instrument which can dig in like a hat pin.

But Garland's way with an audience is something that can be described no better than what there is to kissing.  If you have to ask you will never understand the answer.

Maybe the finest number she pulled out of her well-known old top hat was "I'll Love You Come Rain or Come Shine," which somehow or other she manages to turn into something like out of "Aida".

It was a forgone conclusion that Miss Garland would do "Somewhere, Over the Rainbow" as an encore and in fact, the orchestra was musing over the strains before she left the stage after her last scheduled number.

She added "Swanee," "Chicago," "After You've Gone and others wandered up and down the stage apron touching the hands that reached across the footlights for her.

It was a magic evening, with the glints of the spotlights from Miss Garlands spangles running across the far ceiling of the auditorium like fireflies and the big solid voice asking "How long has this been going on?"

Quite a while baby, and may it continue longer.