In the mid-1980s, the Monkees are hot stuff again after MTV has reintroduced them to a whole new generation of fans. The executives at their old recording label wants them to record some new tunes for a 20th anniversary album and go on a reunion to...
August ended with a bang, with That Was Then, This Is Now reaching number 20 on the Billboard Hot 100, where it would ultimately peak. David Fishof had managed to stack up three months' more concert dates at the same frenetic pace of at least one per day with hardly a day off. True to Davy's word, the tour was scheduled to conclude in December, well before the end of the year, on December 3 at Stabler Arena in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania.
The dog days of summer began to weigh on the guys. Even though they had honed the show and pretty much perfected it to a nicety, it wasn't getting easier to perform. They were now at the point where it was becoming a chore. They were doing one and sometimes two shows a day, with a day off scheduled only once every 5 or 6 days. Even for Micky and Davy, who both had theater experience, it was grueling because there was no supporting cast to prop them up. It was just them and Peter, prancing about the stage and holding the spotlight for the entire hour long show. They were exhausted. But being the consummate professionals they were, the audience never realized their sense of fatigue and tedium and always left with lots of smiles, happy memories and souvenirs. It was with great relief that the guys limped home towards California on the last day of August, to play two shows in Santa Clara, just south of San Francisco, and then even closer to home to southern California to play a show in Costa Mesa. For the first time in three months they were all able to sleep in their own beds after the concert.
Their restoration to a sense of equilibrium and sanity was extremely short-lived, however. In fact, it lasted not even twelve hours. By the next afternoon, they were rushing to the Universal Amphitheater, located in the Universal City section of Los Angeles, where MTV was hosting the MTV Video Music Awards; they needed to do a quick run-through for the evening's performance. Then as soon as that was done they immediately had to dash to the Greek Theatre over an hour away in the Hollywood Hills near where Micky and Peter lived for a sound check for their evening Monkees concert, the first of a three-night gig at that venue. It was pure madness and they weren't sure they would be able to fit it all in. Micky longed for his Star Trek transporter beam as they fought their way through L.A.'s notoriously heavy traffic, and he babbled about his favorite episodes of the T.V. show to try to distract Davy from fixating on his watch. Peter was in his meditation zone while Wendy was trying out the newfangled mobile phone that their limo was equipped with to alert the MTV coordinators of their time crunch predicament and their ETA.
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The guys didn't really get to enjoy the full experience of the awards show hoopla. They missed out on walking the red carpet and there was no time to mingle with the various celebrities in attendance. By the time they arrived, everyone was seated and the show had begun, so they just waited in the wings and took the stage on cue. Nobody famous introduced them, just a disembodied male voice announced "Ladies and gentlemen, the Monkees," but they bounded onstage to an already excited audience and launched into their first number, Daydream Believer.
They had the crowd in their thrall from the word go. It was unbelievable how much support and enthusiasm there was for them as an institution and for their music. The audience was on its feet to welcome them to the stage, cheering like it was 1967, and Peter had to wait for a moment of quiet before he could start his first joke to open the number. Then away they went, with Davy singing his heart out and encouraging everyone to sing along, even mocking them that they weren't singing loud enough and raising the roof with audience participation and a standing ovation mid-set that none of the other acts managed to garner.
