What entertained us in 1992? In Miami, these concerts and shows were the hot tickets
What concerts and shows did we go to 30 years ago in South Florida?
Let’s take a look at the hot tickets of 1992.
Were you there?
From the Miami Herald archives:
Bruce Springsteen
Bruce Springsteen tickets for his Nov. 24 Miami Arena concert went on sale Saturday for $25 — and lasted about 90 minutes, Ticketmaster clerks said.
Once sold out, ticket resale prices were quoted as high as $300 for the first 10 rows, $250 through row 20 and $78 for the back of the concert floor.
“There’s going to be a lot of disappointed doctors and lawyers for this show,” said B. Clay, an assistant manager at First Choice Travel and Tours in Fort Lauderdale.
The rock musician, making his first visit to Florida since 1985, will not add any performances, Cellar Door Concerts president Ron Cohen has said.
Genesis
Genesis celebrated 25 years in the music biz Saturday night with a show that was long on dazzling visuals but curiously short on hits — and at times just plain long. Arriving on the Joe Robbie Stadium stage almost an hour and a half late due to “technical problems” — which to these cynical ears translates: “Let’s keep ‘em waiting, we’ll sell more beer” — the band led off with a subdued but effective “Land Of Confusion” and then kicked out an angry rocking “No Son Of Mine.”
After that promising start, however, the show lost all sense of pacing, with one long drawn-out number following another and a set largely given over to mostly unfamiliar new material. It would be a two-hour wait before the band obliged the packed stadium with another popular hit — the catchy guitar-driven “I Can’t Dance.”
In the vast space of JRS, songs like “Invisible Touch,” “I Know What I Like,” “The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway” or “Throwing It All Away” are revealed as the flimsy paper-thin numbers they really are. Strictly smaller venue material.
On the other hand, the newer songs worked surprisingly well outdoors. The bouncy rocker “Jesus He Knows Me” and the atmospheric “Dreaming While You Sleep” combined intriguing visuals and solid musicianship. Still, whenever the show seemed ready to catch fire with a scorcher like “Domino,” the band followed with a banality like “Tonight, Tonight, Tonight.”
And make no mistake, despite guitarist Mike Rutherford’s claims to the contrary, a Genesis concert is a Phil Collins concert. Collins carried the weight of the 2 1/2-hour show with style and class. Though his singing fell flat at times (mostly on the flaccid “Hold On My Heart”), his limitations are overshadowed by a wonderfully engaging stage presence. (“Is my hair all right?” the balding singer joked at one point.) Whether offering humorous rapid-fire stage patter, joining drummer Chester Thompson for a thunderous drum solo or casting comical demonic glares on Mama, he commands all the attention.
Aside from Collins and a stunning light show played out on three massive screens, the Genesis concert was oddly sedate. And frankly, $35 a ticket is exorbitantly high for the pleasure of watching a veteran act cruise uninspiredly on auto-pilot. Going through the motions is simply unacceptable for a band of Genesis’ caliber.
Toni Bishop
Hollywood Musicfest features lots of live rock and rhythm and blues music are planned from 6 to 9 p.m. Friday and noon to 9 p.m. Saturday and Sunday at Young Circle, Hollywood Boulevard and U.S. 1. Msical highlights include Toni Bishop, Bloodline, Roach Thompson, Joey Gilmore. Admission: $2 for 12 or older, free for 11 or younger.
Nightlife at Pickles Pub
Talk about a great place for Late Night partying: Pickles Pub always stays open till 4 a.m.
And the club, at 2311 N. Federal Highway near Pompano Beach, offers more than just a place to escape to past midnight. Live bands perform here six nights a week, Tuesday through Sunday.
Top 40 band Nightlife will perform beginning at 10 tonight and Saturday. Sundays, step back to the ‘60s and ‘70s with bands like this weekend’s band Techniques, performing old favorites.
Eric Clapton
It was about an hour into Eric Clapton’s standing room only show Monday night at the Miami Arena when the “Clapton is God” tag started to bear fruit.
No, it wasn’t a fiery guitar solo or all-out rocker that convinced me.
Rather it was two achingly lovely back-to-back acoustic numbers, “The Circus Left Town” and “Tears In Heaven,” that did it. If Clapton could elicit such a rapturous response from more 15,000 strangers with two such personal and melancholy numbers , then maybe there is something to that unwieldy “God” tag.
Both “Circus” and “Tears” originate from last year’s tragic death of Clapton’s son Conor.
In concert, Clapton shared his grief with pain etched across his bearded face and a vocal delivery soaked in hushed torment. The audience responded with lit matches and support bordering on hysteria. It was impossible not to be moved.
But Clapton, ever the consummate performer, wasn’t about to leave his fans in a pensive state. After allowing the audience a moment to share his pain, he lit into a barnstorming blues- rocker, “Before You Accuse Me” and then raised the roof with a fiery “Tearing Us Apart.”
Clapton shared the stage with major league talent. Steve Ferrone on drums and Chuck Leavell on keyboards elicited applause on a number of occasions, but percussionist Ray Cooper stood out as the evening’s most colorful and energetic character. A 25-year concert veteran — most notably as accompanist on Elton John’s 1979 landmark tour of Russia — the lanky bespectacled Cooper is a whirling dervish on stage.
Sandwiched between a gong and a set of congas, Cooper — looking like TV’s Les Nessman (of “WKRP” fame) after an adrenaline infusion — milks more out of a simple tambourine than most bands do with a phalanx of synthesizers.
But it was Clapton who the fans came to see and he didn’t disappoint. Clapton touched all the bases of his lengthy career. New material from “Journeyman” mixed well with songs from the Cream days, like the show’s opener “White Room” and ‘70s favorites “Wonderful Tonight” or “I Shot the Sheriff.”
As front man, Clapton maintains an arms distance from his audience. But after all the troubles he has suffered, who can blame him for keeping his guard up. So if a quick “thank-you” is about all he’ll offer in between songs, he’s forgiven.
His guitar communicates every spectrum of emotion — from the joyous noise of “Anything for Your Love” to the blues of “Old Love.”
And don’t judge him or bandmates by appearance, either. The performerson stage may look like they wandered in from a corporate board meeting but no executive ever ripped into a blues number the way Clapton and company did Monday night.
And, oh yeah, “Layla” still sounds great after all these years.
However, following the closing “Sunshine of Your Love,” Clapton chose to end the show with a lengthy percussion solo that seemed anti-climactic after the guitar fire throughout the evening.
So what’s next for Clapton? How’s this rock fans — a limited tour this summer with rock’s Captain Fantastic, Elton John. The mind boggles.
Chicago
Pop music lineups are known for many things, but adventurousness isn’t one of them. Ordinarily, it goes like this: hard-rock headliner, hard-rock opening act. Jazz headliner, jazz opening act.
Those rules will be thrown out the window Saturday as the veteran pop/rock band Chicago headlines an Independence Day bill at Joe Robbie Stadium that includes hot-shot R&B newcomers Color Me Badd.
Chicago, of course, is the 25-year-old group, born in brass-heavy jazz, that became a powerhouse on the pop charts with songs like 25 or 6 to 4, If You Leave Me Now, You’re the Inspiration and Look Away. Color Me Badd, meantime, burst into the limelight just last year with sexy R&B ballads like I Wanna Sex You Up, I Adore Mi Amor and Slow Motion.
It’s a bill that’s certain to unite divergent pop constituencies. Can a CMB fan find happiness with the sounds of Chicago? Or vice versa? Stay tuned, stranger things have happened.
Besides, it’s all for a good cause — to benefit Miami Children’s Hospital. The show starts at 7 p.m. at Joe Robbie, 2269 NW 199th St., Miami. Tickets will set you back $12 to $20 (plus service charge) for adults, $7.50 for kids under 12; admission is free to partiers under 2 years of age. Get your tickets through Ticketmaster.
Brenda Lee
Brenda Lee — the beloved “Little Miss Dynamite” — has sung for fans in the United States, London, Berlin, Frankfurt, Canada, even Japan. But this Saturday night, Brenda Lee will be singing for a cause.
She’ll be here to help out the Poverello Center, a Wilton Manors-based, all-volunteer food bank serving men, women and children with AIDS. Lee’s picking up all costs to fly her band from Nashville to perform at Fort Lauderdale’s War Memorial Auditorium. The venue cost is also being underwritten, so 100 percent of the ticket sales will benefit the center.
“It’s a cause that needs reckoning with, and people need help,” she said from her home in Nashville. “And I’ve been so blessed that if I can help anybody else, I’m all for it.”
It almost seems as though Lee were born blessed. Christened Brenda Mae Tarpley in Atlanta, Lee started singing professionally at age 6 and recorded her first song, a cover of Hank Williams’ Jambalaya (On the Bayou), when she was 10. She had her first Top 40 hit, the ‘60s classic Sweet Nothin’s, when she was sweet 16.
Singing and performing, she said, is “just what I’ve always done. I don’t think I ever really said I was gonna do it. I just did it.”
Yet she admits there wasn’t much music surrounding her when she was growing up. “The only music I heard was at the church, and there was a little old man who played the blues on the corner near my house. We didn’t have a record player or a radio or anything like that. But my mama sang me Hank Williams songs. I guess that’s where I started liking Hank Williams. But gospel music is my roots. That’s the first music that I listened to.”
Lee’s success has been mostly in the pop and country genre, every once in a while crossing over to the R&B charts. Her Break It to Me Gently single is still considered a standard; she felt flattered by Juice Newton’s faithful remake 20 years later.
“I thought it was good,” she said. “It was exactly like my record, the arrangements and everything.” Since that recording, Newton has also done a cover of her Emotions tune.
But Lee isn’t just resting on her laurels. Last year, she released the first album on her Warner Bros. / Nashville contract. Simply titled Brenda Lee, the record’s country, blues and R&B-flavored songs showcase a vocal style that comes only with age and experience.
Even though that album hasn’t captured much of an audience, Lee is not disappointed.
“Critically it was acclaimed,” she said. “That let people know that I was still in the marketplace. As far as sales are concerned, it was decent. We would have liked for it to have done great, but it did what we needed it to do.”
She is now selecting songs for her next Warner Bros. set, which she hopes will be released by year’s end.
Lee captured the interest of Warner Bros. executives in a roundabout way: She made a guest vocal appearance as part of a Honky Tonk Angels medley on k.d. lang’s 1988 Shadowland album. She then appeared on a video with lang (herself a Sire/Warner Bros. recording artist). That’s when the recording contract machinery started moving.
On the personal side, Lee once again appears to be blessed. Still married to the man she wed at 18, Lee has two daughters (ages 28 and 23); at 47, she’s also a grandmother. And this grandmother performs six or seven days a month at private, corporate or public shows.
At Saturday’s show, the audience will be treated to a smorgasbord of music: a lot of the oldies, gospel, rock, pop, country and a few audience-participation numbers. With all that musical variety, does Lee consider herself a country vocalist, a pop singer or an R&B vocalist?
“I’m just a singer,” she quickly said. “I’ve been lucky to have been categorized in all those fields and to have played in all those fields. I like all kinds of music and am comfortable singing just about anything.”
But what’s her favorite tune?
“Oh, gosh, there are a lot that I really like,” she said in an innocent tone. “But I must say I’m Sorry certainly ranks among the ones that are near and dear to my heart.”
Brenda Lee takes the stage at 8 p.m. Saturday at the War Memorial Auditorium, Northeast Eighth Street and Federal Highway, Fort Lauderdale. Tickets are $15 and $20 ($75 for the VIP section) at the auditorium box office and all Ticketmaster outlets.
Bob Hope, Lou Rawls, Mel Torme, Tony Bennett
The Broward Center for the Performing Arts, well aware that West Palm Beach’s new Kravis Center will be competing for its audiences when it opens this fall, announced its 1992-93 schedule Wednesday, starting with the King of Comedy, Bob Hope.
Hope, leading a lineup designed to appeal to the condo crowd, is scheduled to take the stage Nov. 22 with his wife, Dolores, Miss USA Gretchen Polhemus and a 22-piece orchestra, in what’s billed as an exclusive South Florida performance.
Other headliners on the list: Lou Rawls, Rich Little, Mel Torme, Tony Bennett, the Chieftains from Ireland and the Peking Circus in its first U.S. tour, making its only Florida appearance Oct. 30. The 12-act show features 42 performers, including storytellers, magicians, dancers and acrobats.
Rawls, a four-time Grammy winner with one of the most world’s most distinctive voices, is to sing Nov. 20. Torme, who has been singer, composer, drummer, television producer, vaudeville performer and author during his 60-year career, will appear Dec. 5. Little, who bills himself as the “undisputed master of mimicry,” will give a new twist to Dickens’ Christmas Carol on Dec. 6 with singers, dancers and musicians in tow.
The month of St. Patrick’s Day will get started with the Chieftains on March 3. April will dawn with the second New River Jazz Festival on April 2-4, and on May 8 the venerable Tony Bennett will perform .
In addition, through two presenting organizations — Judy Drucker’s Concert Association of Florida and PTG Florida — the center has booked several key performances of the season: the National Orchestra of Spain, the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra from London, the San Francisco Ballet, the Moscow Virtuosi, violinist Itzhak Perlman, dancers Mikhail Baryshnikov and Twyla Tharp, Camelot, and Broadway hits The Will Rogers Follies and The Secret Garden.
Ticket prices vary but are now on sale for all shows through the center’s box office or at TicketMaster outlets.
Peter Frampton
Rock-’n’-roll legend Peter Frampton will perform at 11 p.m. Saturday at the Cameo Theatre, 1445 Washington Ave.
It will be his only South Florida appearance. The tour is Frampton’s first since 1987 when he was with David Bowie’s Glass Spider Tour.
The North American tour, which began in February, will run through the end of the summer. Frampton, 42, decided to get back into the limelight after a jam session in November with Lynyrd Skynyrd.
“That’s when he realized that he just needed to get back on the road again,” said Carol Kaye, Frampton’s publicist. “He just missed being out on the road.”
Saturday’s two-hour concert will feature a cross-section of works from the time Frampton was with Humble Pie to his early solo days, including songs from the 1976 double live album, Frampton Comes Alive, which hit No. 1 on the pop charts.
Frampton also will sing a few new songs, which will be released in July by A&M Records.
Tickets cost $16 in advance and $18 at the door and can be purchased at Ticketmaster outlets.
Gloria Estefan and the New World Symphony
There’ll be little classical but a lotta oo-la-la at the March 28 Miami Arena concert with Gloria Estefan and the New World Symphony.
Michael Tilson Thomas, the symphony’s artistic director, announced Monday that there are only three classics in the lineup: Gershwin’s Second Rhapsody for Piano and Orchestra, in which Thomas will make a rare appearance as solo pianist; the music from Bizet’s Carmen, during which Estefan will make her entrance; and Alberto Ginastera’s Malambo, written as part of a 1941 ballet based on rustic scenes from Argentina’s pampas.
Otherwise, it’s Tito Puente’s Mambo Gozon, Naranjo’s El Ruisenor, Roig’s Quiereme Mucho, a Latin American medley and Estefan’s own hits — Oye Mi Canto, Conga, Cuts Both Ways/Here We Are and Anything for You — that will occupy center stage.
Concert tickets, available at the Arena box office or through Ticketmaster outlets, cost $19 to $50; concert tickets including a gala afterward at the Omni Hotel cost $500 and $1,000 per person. Beneficiaries are the New World Symphony and four local charities: the Community Alliance Against AIDS, the United Negro College Fund, the United Way of Dade County and the Kiwanis of Little Havana Foundation.
In the orchestra will be 89 symphony players and 11 members of Estefan’s band, the Miami Sound Machine.
This story was originally published April 8, 2022 at 10:45 AM.
