The Happy Together tour started in the 1980s as a traveling bubblegum pop revue, hosted by The Turtles, and while there were many years that it didn’t happen, the tour has been an unofficial kickoff to summer every year—minus 2020 and 2021—since 2010. These days, the lineups feature a handful of people who actually appeared on “The Ed Sullivan Show,” while many on the lineup are new kids approved-by-the-OGs, and performing under whichever moniker, while reminiscing about how cool the ‘60s were, and bragging about how many records their band sold compared to The Beatles and the Rolling Stones.
Sibling trio The Cowsills opened things up at 7 p.m. on the dot, with flowery, jangly jams. Also thrown in was a story about how in 1969, the Cowsill family was on a beach in Florida with their drunk father, who refused to get out of the ocean because he wanted to swim to Cuba in order to “get that son of a bitch [Fidel] Castro once and for all.”
Tom Garrett—who currently fronts The Classics IV, a blue-eyed soul group from Jacksonville, free of any original members—spent most of his 20-minute slot with saxophonist Paul Weddle reminding fans of how the group’s hits should have been higher on the charts. He was still appreciative of “Spooky” receiving a gold record, though.
It was The Vogues—also free of any OGs—that really tore the house down for the first time all night. Their three-part harmonies on “Five O’Clock World” and “My Special Angel” were almost gospel-esque, and the latter awarded the trio a 30-second standing ovation. “Thank God you clapped that long, because I’m exhausted now,” Troy Elich declared, before leading everyone else into “Turn Around, Look At Me.”
Following a 20-minute intermission, Clearwater resident Gary Puckett—clad in a teal trench coat—started his last night at home for the summer with “Now Or Never,” eventually introducing a “coming of age song for many of us back then,” which turned out to be “This Girl Is A Woman Now.” Puckett was also the first act to acknowledge the four-piece house band, and before bringing out his four grandchildren to usher him offstage, he led fans through “Young Girl,” which he would film the last minute or so of, after spending everything before that with his iPhone in hand, and the camera app wide open.
Just when you thought nothing could top the uplifting anthems of The Vogues, out came an Imperial-less Little Anthony, still lamenting his tales of heartbreak and wanting to be noticed, but still in his trademark squeaky vocal form. The 82-year-old Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee reminisced about the end of his first love affair when he lived in Brooklyn, and how “Hurt So Bad” linked to it perfectly.
“I hope this song doesn’t bring any unpleasant memories to you folks,” he warned. But considering the long high notes he held, and the standing ovation he later received from people younger than him, to hell with unpleasant memories.
After Dante lead the band through his Cuff Links hit “Tracy” and “Sugar Sugar”—the latter of which was one of two songs that literally everyone in the room knew by heart—Flo briefly remembered working with Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention. “We’re not gonna play any of those songs, although some of them are really good,” he admitted. Instead, Flo and Dante closed their set with “Eleanor,” and the tour’s title track, which concluded with the entire tour repertoire hitting the stage together.
See my photos below.