David Cassidy gave an anger filled and bizarre performance on Saturday night (March 4th) at New York City's B.B. Kings Blues Club. The Partridge Family '70s heartthrob recently revealed his battle with dementia after a disastrous Los Angeles-area appearance last month in which he appeared heavily intoxicated and fell off the stage. Cassidy made a slight improvement for the "Big Apple" crowd -- but not much. Cassidy, who was sweating profusely and toweling himself off constantly with washcloths, admonished the crowd numerous times for filming him with flash photography -- citing the five eye surgeries he's endured and one more still to come, as well as taking fans to task for yelling their requests and approval. Cassidy seemed constantly plagued with sound problems and complained to the crowd about how arthritis and back pain has hampered his guitar playing.
Although he did perform his Partridge Family classics -- "Come On Get Happy," "I'll Meet You Halfway," "Point Me In The Direction Of Albuquerque," "Doesn't Somebody Want To Be Wanted," "I Woke Up In Love This Morning," and "I Think I Love You" -- rather than covering any of his acclaimed music from his post-TV years, the majority of the show was taken up by long-winded covers of songs by Frank Sinatra, the Pretenders, the Beatles, the Monkees, George Benson, B.B. King.
- Peppered between the songs were seemingly endless recollections and cloying tributes to his bandmates, former bandmates, John Lennon, his late-father -- actor Jack Cassidy, B.B. King, Davy Jones, and of course his fans -- who were admonished nearly as much as they were saluted. Although Cassidy made a point of saying that he was not retiring, he did let it slip that the Manhattan show was, "the last thing he was doing."
- During his recent appearance on the syndicated Dr. Phil program, Cassidy, who's now 66, spoke frankly about his dementia diagnosis [(Dr.Phil): "What was the first symptom that you noticed? (David Cassidy): When friends of yours, or family members begin to say to you -- 'Remember, I just told you this two days ago' -- and there's no memory of it. That's when I began to be very concerned. (Dr. Phil): Was that what caused you to say 'I need to go get myself checked'? (David Cassidy): Oh, my God, yeah."]
- Cassidy spoke about the darkness he fears his life will become: [(Dr.Phil): What's your greatest fear for the future as you continue on this path? (David Cassidy): Being in the place that my mother was the last two years of her life where I would completely disappear and I'd just be a burden to caretakers, and couldn't walk, couldn't talk, couldn't sing, couldn't play. That's kind of my greatest fear actually."]
- David Cassidy will next perform on June 11th in Mentor, Ohio at Mentor Performing Arts Center.
CHECK IT OUT: David Cassidy on Saturday night addressing the crowd in NYC -- start at 3:45: