- Houston Astrodome -

Houston Astrodome
December 17, 1965

While Gemini-7 was conquering outerspace Friday night, Judy Garland was sending some 10,000 earthlings into orbit in the Astrodome, but not even the Great Garland could work enough of her magic to overcome the wide open spaces and bad acoustics of Houston's answer to the Grand Canyon.

Never mind. Judy can still send you to the other side of the rainbow with her unique voice. Her pulsating stage presence and her thorough professionalism.

From the time she stepped on the blue draped stage, complete with runway, at 10 p.m. until she left 40 minutes later, she had the audience cheering, sighing, choking-up and running the spectrum of emotion.

Perhaps Judy would have sung much longer - obviously the audience wanted her to - if she had been in a building designed for solo performers.

It was as if she knew that even with Dorothy's red shoes on, she couldn't overpower the Wicked Witch of the West, who was somewhere in the Domed Stadium tampering with the sound system.

Besides, not even Judy, with her individual magnetism, can stop the drafty effects of the Astrodome, which has all the intimacy of a Rose Bowl.

This didn't stop Judy from trying. She sang her heart out to all sides of the stage, even to the hundreds in the dollar bleacher seats. Unfortunately for the bleacher patrons, there were no spotlights on that side of the stage.

Judy Started with "He's Got the Whole World in His Hands" and ended with of course, "Over the Rainbow." In between, she had her fans sighing with a soft and tender "Do It Again" and shouting bravos with a rousing Rockabye My Baby."

Then she Left. For a full five minutes, hundreds stayed around the stage, begging for more. They kept chanting, "We Want Judy!"

They were happy with Judy, but, after all, they had waited a long time to hear her. The show was advertised as starting at 8 p.m., but didn't get underway until 8:40, when The Supremes, the Motown, Detroit the "unhip" Girls Trio hit the stage.