Sha Na Na Steals Show From Rare Earth At SPAC
The Times Record, September 2, 1972
There are hard acts to follow and then there are impossible acts to follow, as the members of the rock group, Rare Earth, found Friday evening at the Saratoga Performing Arts Center. They had to work overtime to regain an audience that had been driven to near-hysterical heights by one of the funniest acts in show business today, Sha Na Na.
The show stealers are a 12-member group who relive the good old days of rock & roll in a fast-paced revival of the big hits of the 50s, things like Bill Haley’s “Rock Around the Clock” and “Shake Rattle and Roll,” Ray Peterson’s “Tell Her I Love Her,” Little Anthony’s “Tears on My Pillow,” Jerry Lee Lewis’s “Whole Lot of Shakin’,” and a couple by Elvis Presley, “Jailhouse Rock” and “Hound Dog.”
All the stereotyped actions of the groups that originally did the songs are tightly choreographed into the act, making it a constant, fun-filled “put-on” from beginning to end, and the audience of some 15,000 young fans loved it all. We sat next to three youngsters who had hitchhiked all the way from Lake Placid to see Sha Na Na. They didn’t even know who Rare Earth, supposed to be the featured group, were.
Division of Labor
The members of Sha Na Na are divided into two groups, the three Gold “Lames” who do most of the dancing, and the “greasers” who play the instruments. The singing is pretty well divided among all of the members
They march out on stage one by one at the beginning of the show, snarling at the audience, showing off their muscles, chewing on toothpicks, and in general making like “badies.”
The “greasers” are dressed in black leather jackets or T-shirts, with well-shrunk dungarees which show off white socks underneath. The dancers are dressed in glittering gold jumpsuits representing the showier groups of the rock era. Together the two factions leap and dance about the stage going through exaggerated antics that would have been laughed off the stage in the real days of rock and roll.
At one point in the concert, one of the members, wearing dark glasses, accidentally walked off the edge of the stage, right into the lap of the audience.
The group made all of their songs short, so they were able to cover a lot of material. At the conclusion of their segment one of the members yelled to the audience, “Hey, all you hippies—rock and roll is here to stay.” The hippies roared their approval along with the rest of the audience.
Stage Crew Blues
When Sha Na Na went off the stage after their second or third encore, the stage crew for Rare Earth ran out and started setting up for their half of the concert. The audience was still screaming, so Sha Na Na returned, pushed the Earth’s equipment to the side of the stage and did another encore, which delighted the audience, but certainly not the feature group.
When Rare Earth did get going, after a very lengthy intermission, they only did five songs, but those were extended versions of very well-known rock tunes, “Hey Big Brother,” “Born to Wander,” “I’m Losing You,” “Celebrate” and “Get Ready.”
Rare Earth is a very fine and polished rock group, but it seemed to take them some time to get the audience thinking on their terms after Sha Na Na. The youngslers were seated and subdued through most of their portion of the program, which went until nearly midnight, in spite of an 11:30 curfew.
Together drummer Pete Hoorelbeke (vocal soloist as well), conga drummer Ed Guzman and bassist Mike Urso kept a tight rhythmic background intact, and Gil Bridges offered some highly musical solos on flute.
Only in the group’s final number, “Get Ready, ” were they able to put the audience on their feet in the expected fashion, and here it took a combined drum solo by Guzman and Hoorelbeke lo do the trick.
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