Winter Festival Concert Long Beach CA 1978

Rick-An Ordinary Fool

Well-Known Member
I saw this poster on sale at e bay (way expensive) and I skewed the photo and made some adjustments so it was tilted corrected. We must keep these photos in posterity of our favorite duo....I've never seen the full version of this poster. It's pretty cool. It's hard to believe this was the last live concert they performed besides some TV specials that may have been live.

December 3, 1978, awards presentation at 4:00 p.m. Carpenters joined a 5 choral groups and the Long Bch Symphony Orchestra at the LB Terrace Theater. Richard and Karen announce the Carpenters Scholarship Fund established with proceeds from the concert.

Songs performed:
It's Christmas Time/Sleep Well Little Children
Merry Christmas Darling
Silent Night
Ave Maria
Close Encounters/Star Wars Medley

The guest conductor for the segments was the late Doug Strawn. This was a big event....the President of the university presented a plaque to Karen & Richard bearing their name and it said "In recognition of his/her leadership in creating a unique style of popular music."

VNY43ze.jpg


I believe that Randy uploaded the video performance and a rare photo of this event on his facebook page a few years back.



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Wow - I probably would not have liked the choir on a studio recording back in 1978, but it is exquisite in this live performance as it is recorded. It makes me want to hear the entire set.

Since this was in December of 1978, this was after the “meltdown” in September of 1978 that became the last time “the band” played live with Karen and Richard? It was awesome they were able to keep this date. And awesome of Karen to fly to England to carry the Carpenters sound to England on the Bruce Forsyth “Big Night” Show later that month. It’s great to see the magic of Christmas recorded!
 
Songs performed:
It's Christmas Time/Sleep Well Little Children
Merry Christmas Darling
Silent Night
Ave Maria
Close Encounters/Star Wars Medley

Their performance was even shorter than that - Richard dropped It's Christmas Time at the last minute and they started with the rather lacklustre Sleep Well, Little Children.

Very cool though, thanks so much for posting this thread. That poster is one of my favourites, since it symbolises their last ever truly live performance. Did the poster originally have that ‘sheen’ over the top right side of it as I’d love to enlarge and frame this for my wall at home?
 
It's interesting to hear how Karen performed this live version of MCD vs the one she did on the BF show. She is using different nuances on this one.

Stephen, I pulled that poster pic off e bay so it's not perfect, I just tried to adjust the tilt so it appears to be flat and took off the framed border and then I darkened it slightly. I'd imagine that white area is flash return from the original pic. It's not the greatest but the best photo I've seen of this famous poster.
 
I saw this poster on sale at e bay (way expensive) and I skewed the photo and made some adjustments so it was tilted corrected. We must keep these photos in posterity of our favorite duo....I've never seen the full version of this poster. It's pretty cool. It's hard to believe this was the last live concert they performed besides some TV specials that may have been live.

December 3, 1978, awards presentation at 4:00 p.m. Carpenters joined a 5 choral groups and the Long Bch Symphony Orchestra at the LB Terrace Theater. Richard and Karen announce the Carpenters Scholarship Fund established with proceeds from the concert.

Songs performed:
It's Christmas Time/Sleep Well Little Children
Merry Christmas Darling
Silent Night
Ave Maria
Close Encounters/Star Wars Medley

The guest conductor for the segments was the late Doug Strawn. This was a big event....the President of the university presented a plaque to Karen & Richard bearing their name and it said "In recognition of his/her leadership in creating a unique style of popular music."

VNY43ze.jpg


I believe that Randy uploaded the video performance and a rare photo of this event on his facebook page a few years back.



YyBFeZn.jpg

Carpenters Christmas songs and a choir.....works for me.
 
Excerpt from a concert review by Charles Carney at the time:

The Carpenters finally arrived on the stage far too late in the show to make a difference, and stayed for too short a time. Their presence should either have been established during the early portion of the show and woven throughout or extended for a longer time at the end. As it was, their arrival broke the carefully designed momentum that had been building during the first two thirds of the show, and catapulted it into the predictability of a Las Vegas lounge act”.

Coming so late in their career, that review had to have stung and brought it home, especially to Richard, that all was far from well.
 
And yet, it seems as if "predictability of a Las Vegas lounge act"
is exactly what Richard was aiming for at that point in time !
 
I'm only now hearing "Merry Christmas, Darling" from this live set. Karen's voice was exquisite! She goes "out of the lines" just enough to "freshen it" and make it a truly once-in-a-lifetime "live" experience. Her treatment of the ending of the song is lovely! It demonstrates how beautifully natural a singer she was!
 
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