- Cobo Arena -

Judy's Old Magic Thrills her Fans
By Don Newman - Macomb Daily

Half a dozen spotlights wildly scanned the audience, ushers hurried to their stations and then a roar of voices and applause filled the air.  The cause of all this excitement was the magical Judy Garland.

Once the slight figure clad in a bronze  jeweled pant suit topped with a kelly green scarf appeared at the rear of Detroit's Cobo Arena and strode to the stage, the fans who had come to pay homage forgot the fact they had waited from 8:30 to 10:10 p.m. for a glimpse of her.  She was Judy.  The Judy Garland of WIZARD OF OZ -- the sweet little teen-ager of MEET ME IN ST. LOUIS, the dewy eyed ingenue of EASTER PARADE.  You can read about this magic rapport she has with audiences and still never understand it until you actually witness it.  Not that you understand it then, but you have a clearer picture of why this wisp of a woman has had such a prolonged, if bumpy, career in show business.  In the eyes of her friendly loyal fans she can do no wrong.  Sure, the voice has given way to time.  She doesn't always reach the note she strives for and more than once there was a crack in her voice.  Judy goes on because her fans encourage her.  They overlook the flaws and see THEIR Judy.  And she does belong to her fans more than any star in show biz.  Shouts of "We love you Judy," are answered by her with a grin and "I love you all, too."  To criticize her performance would be unjust.  Her voice was spotty.  It cracked and in one song, WHAT NOW MY LOVE, I was actually embarrassed for her.  But there was something special about her total performance.  She has charisma.

She sang many of the songs she has sung in the past.  Some are strongly identified with her, others are just pleasantly attuned to her.  Naturally, HER song received the wildest ovations -- MEET ME IN ST. LOUIS, YOU MADE ME LOVE YOU, THE TROLLEY SONG, and ROCKABYE YOUR BABY.  She chatted with the audience between numbers, sitting down on the steps leading up to the middle of the stage.  Judy commented on the 'intimacy' of Cobo Arena.  "I've never sung on a basketball court before," she said.  "I don't know whether to sing or dribble through the rest of the show."  She frequently dips water and mops her brow with a large handkerchief.  She comments on the sparkle sprayed on her short hair -- "it's not dandruff, friend, it's sparkle!"  The fans lap this up, because it never sounds contrived coming from Judy.

During the 20 minutes of curtain calls (minus a curtain) the fans of the half-filled arena rushed to the main floor and surrounded the stage.  Then she sang SWANEE and the all-time favorite -- the song she'll never be able to get rid of -- OVER THE RAINBOW.

Judy Garland and her faithful admirers had a small love in Friday night at Cobo Arena in an adventure more distinguished by sentiment than good music.  Miss Garland was almost completely out of voice and had to make extensive use of a juggler, a comedian and three tap dancers to pad out the evening.  The program started at 8:30 p.m.  Miss Garland finally made her entrance at 10:10 p.m., following several sieges of foot stomping and rhythmic clapping by the audience.  The audience was good-natured, however -- nay, adoring.  Most didn't care how she sang but just wanted to bask in the sunshine of her smile.

She made a triumphant entrance down the basketball floor, a glittering and slim girl in a sort of red-and-brown chinese jacket affair with a green scarf at her throat.  She blew kisses all around while shouts of: "Judy, we love you" arose.  "I love you, too," she shouted.  It was fortunate that there was so much love to be shared because Miss Garland had no low range -- a disaster with OLD MAN RIVER -- and what few high notes she attempted she made but barely.

During MEET ME IN ST. LOUIS, LOUIS, she blew her lines and eventually she and the orchestra decided to give it up in mid-song as a hopeless cause.  The crowd was small -- about 1,000 persons scattered in the vastness of Cobo Hall.  It was a very informal evening.  At one point Miss Garland sat on the edge of the stage and suggested that her listeners mill around for a while and talk to one another.  "If you notice the show is a little casualty," she quipped, "It's not really.  It's a calamity."

Somewhere over some long ago rainbow there was a little girl called Dorothy who brought a special magic to our lives when we were kids.  But kids grow up -- and even rainbows can't last forever, except on Technicolor film.  What is left is nostalgia -- with enough of the special magic to make and evening with Judy Garland an unbelievable experience.  Not enough magic to half fill Cobo Arena on a wet, cold night like last night, you might point out.  But when 4,000 or 5,000 on hand are Garland fans, as these obviously were, there's enough to produce the sound of a packed house.

In keeping with her recent image, there was an air of foreboding in the audience as to Judy's whereabouts as the concert's first half plodded along with an assortment of jugglers, tap dancers and a comedian obviously stalling for time.  Shouts of "Follow the yellow brick road" during a prolonged intermission finally brought results as Judy mounted the stage at 10:10, following a dramatic entrance down Cobo's long center aisle.  There was little Dorothy looking more like a nervous munchkin in her bronze, sequined slack suit, green scarf and sparkled short hair.  And then the adulation of the fans moved in close as if to form a protective shield for the faltering, raspy voice, the elusive high notes and the forgotten cues.  They didn't mind the long pauses or erratic behavior which now seem to have been worked into a comedy routine, or her jesting crossness over the barrage of flashbulbs.  And she endeared herself even more with her jibes that she had never appeared on a basketball court before.

There was no need for her apology for the frog in her throat.  The audience was prepared to applaud if she did nothing more than cough.  And Judy rewarded them with bits of nostalgia -- THE TROLLEY SONG and FOR ME AND MY GAL and a glimpse of the true Garland talent on ROCKABYE and her first encore of SWANEE.  The surging of the crowd and the unending cries of 'more' finally coaxed an attempt at OVER THE RAINBOW which made it painfully clear why Judy has dropped the number from her regular fare.  The fans, by then crowding the stage, cheered the gallant attempt and showed their gratitude by calling her back on stage a total of 7 times while the band played OVER THE RAINBOW for 25 minutes.

It would be easy to say the magic was all in the minds of the beholders.  But even the most hardened cynic might wonder if he hadn't caught a twinkle of it himself from this capricious leprechaun on stage.