North County Staff | Posted: Wednesday, January 4, 2006 11:00 pm
We spent New Year's Eve at the Apollo Hall looking for a few Osmonds.
And we found them, too. Most of them just weren't the ones we were looking for.
The night was a benefit event for the Utah Theater for the Deaf, which has found a home at the Apollo this year. Virl Osmond, the oldest brother in the famous Utah performing family, has taken over the dance hall and dubbed the Apollo the George and Olive Osmond Center for the Performing Arts, in honor of his parents.
Virl, who is deaf himself, is one of the non-performing Osmonds, although he spent part of New Year's Eve acting as Master of Ceremonies. His brother Tom, who is also deaf, was there as well.
And apparently the room was full of Osmonds, mostly the non-famous kind -- children, grandchildren, cousins and others. For the most part, we didn't know who was who.
Two of the performing brothers were there. Alan, who doesn't perform any more since developing Multiple Sclerosis, was in the audience.
Merrill, who sings lead for the brothers when they perform as a group, was the headline act.
His son played bass guitar in his back-up band.
So we had two Osmonds on the stage.
Patriarch George Osmond was also in the audience.
In addition to his eight sons and one daughter, George has 56 grandwchildren and more than 20 great grandchildren. Some of these, we were told, were scattered throughout the audience. This was, after all, a family affair.
It all worked out well for them. Alan had a chance to plug his One Heart Foundation aimed at strengthening families.
A couple of corporate sponsors got to tout their products as well. I hope they paid well for the privilege. It is a good cause.
Merrill is apparently no stranger to performing solo. He has an act in Branson, Mo., where the brothers performed for years, as well as touring with the brothers. The Osmonds have a tour planned for Great Britain starting in February, with Jimmy taking the place of Alan.
But on Saturday night, Merrill didn't seem to have any problem commanding the stage by himself.
Sharon and I saw three of the brothers perform at Thanksgiving Point in 2004. I was kind of skeptical when she told me we were going to an Osmonds concert, but Sharon is a fan and was interested in seeing them on stage. Once she got me there, though, I was impressed.
Whether you like their music or not (some of it I do, some I don't), all of the performing Osmonds clearly have stage presence developed from decades of entertaining large audiences. They are comfortable. They are charismatic. They are fun to watch.
So the show was fun.
And Merrill has plenty of talent, but holding the stage alone has got to be a challenge when part of your public persona is tied up in a family act.
In 1970, when Paul McCartney released his first solo album, "McCartney," a friend bought the album and gave the following review: "It's about as fourth as good as a Beatles' album, which is still pretty good."
That may be a little harsh, but it shows that for a great band, or even a good one, the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.
Still, we had a good time. The Apollo looked to be in great shape. Virl Osmond has plans to put this grand old dance hall back on the map.
In its heyday, the Apollo was one of the premier dance venues in the state. Garth Norman, a local archeologist who was at Saturday's event, told me that in the early days they would bring the train from Salt Lake to American Fork filled with people who wanted to dance.
The famous spring-loaded floor is still in place, and still bouncing. The chairs around the outside have been replaced with theater-style seats from the Osmonds' theater in Branson. The inside has been spiffed up and plans are in the works to do more -- including six large plasma screen televisions on the walls to engage the kids.
The restrooms need some serious refurbishing, but everything else looked pretty good.
If all goes well, we can probably look forward to more events and activities in this historic building. It would be great to bring the dancers back to downtown American Fork.
This story appeared in North County on page A2.