Behan wrote:philipchevron wrote:BILLY CONNOLLY 37 Arts Theatre, New York (tomorrow)
JACKIE MASON Vicar Street Dublin (June 18th)
I would love to see Billy tonight but I wouldn't be able to get tickets now.
Stiff Little Fingers: June 11 -- New York, NY: Irving Plaza
Actually, he wasn't quite sold out. He is still doing walk-up business for this 20-show run. It's certainly very odd seeing Billy playing a compact theatre in New York when he is such a megastar back home, but kinda nice too. The last time I saw him in a venue this size was when he played Liberty Hall in Dublin in 1973. For the record, he was as gut-achingly funny as ever in a two-hour show, and the New Yawkers loved him. He had a long riff about his new passion for Scuba Diving in which I feared he would leave me behind, as I don't even
swim, much less dance with sharks, but I was in safe enough hands when he went into a bit about the sting of the Stonefish - "the worst pain known to man, I'm told. How do they know this? Do they have a village simpleton guinea pig and a pain-o-meter and they grade the intensity of the pain? From Ouch! to Fuck this! to Holy Mary and Sweet Holy Jesus! to Worst Pain Known to Man!??"
Billy told me later that it was
he who persuaded a far-from-convinced Terry Woods to join the Pogues when the job was offered to him in 1985. "Aw man, it'll be like running away to join the circus, Terry. Go for it, man!!" This was interesting, not to mention prescient information. He also lamented that he had forgotten to do his new bit about his Middle East musical "Saddam, You're Rockin' The Boat" (songs include "Yasser, That's My Baby"). Also in the post-gig court of King Billy was that woman who plays the shrink in The Sopranos and her sister, also an actress, who told me she last met me in Chicago in 1986 when she was appearing with Tom Waits in the musical "Frank's Wild Years". What an interesting life I have half-fogotten.
Billy has the greatest Gift - the gift of laughter.
Posted: Wed May 17, 2006 8:00 pmWell for yis.
