Sanitized for Your Protection

A review of a concert by Entertainment Tonight host John Tesh

Like many of you, I’m glued to the horrific and ongoing news of the Los Angeles fires. I’ve checked in with friends, read the updates from people I know, and it’s just sickening. Don’t pay attention to the politics or the conspiracies, it’s real and it’s devastating. If you want to help, there are plenty of online resources, look them up. I began thinking about not just the lives, and houses, and businesses, but about all of the culture that’s peculiar to that region. The film productions, the music industry, TV and recording studios, comedy clubs, book publishers, art museums, and architecture. L.A. represents so much vitality. What’s going to happen now?

I wasn’t sure what to post here. But then I thought, maybe I could help by adding some brief levity to the mix. Los Angeles is the world’s entertainment hub. And it produces the longest-running entertainment news program on television, Entertainment Tonight (featuring the worst earworm theme song in history). The co-hosts during the show’s “classic era” were John Tesh and Mary Hart. Toothy, winsome, with fantastic hair, delivering nightly celebrity gossip to the planet. But there were some side stories as well. In 1991, sarcastic young people relished an obscure medical news item in the New England Journal of Medicine, about a patient who suffered from seizures whenever she heard the sound of Mary Hart’s voice. This was a real thing. Hart’s co-host John Tesh also had an impact on people, and although he didn’t give people seizures, he did moonlight as a family-friendly musician, and one night I snagged a press pass to one of his concerts in San Francisco. This was my review of his show. I hope it brings some cheer to a horrible week in Los Angeles. It originally appeared in SF Weekly in August 1996.

“Photography is permitted,” announces the baritone voice, echoing off the suspended acoustic panels of Davies Symphony Hall. “In fact, flash photography is our favorite.” The crowd titters with laughter. In a few minutes, handsome broadcaster John Tesh and his 22-piece orchestra will take the stage. Although the hall is only one-third full, the Tesh-heads are abuzz with excitement—white, middle-aged folks who are not afraid to drive across a windy bridge on a Tuesday night for some quality musical milk.

Restless with hosting Entertainment Tonight and Olympic gymnastics, Tesh has carved himself an alternative career that includes composing music for the Olympics, releasing 11 CDs and videos, and performing in his own PBS Live at Red Rocks concert special. Although ignored by mainstream critics, his contribution to America’s musical canon must not be overlooked. He is our generation’s Andy Williams.

Somebody’s laughing all the way to the bank here, and it’s not you. A Tesh composition, usually a lush, simplistic instrumental, may suggest a variety of images—an exciting day of mall shopping; leotarded tumblers from Cirque du Soleil; a restaurant waiter whose name is Blake saying he’s very sorry but he’s out of the lemon salmon tortellini.

The show is very loud. Perhaps he’s considering his elderly fans who may have hearing problems. And the light show is a legitimate scorcher—revolving patterns, strobes, and other theatrical effects to catch the sexagenarian's eye.

The stage action is fast. As Tesh moves from grand piano and keyboards to percussion, his accompanying guitar army and chief violinist stroll, pose, and hop their way across the stage. (Tesh in particular has an exciting way of pounding the keyboard with his left hand and raising it high in the air—no question who’s driving this train.)

The extremely competent musicians smile constantly, their great Fabio hair always falling perfectly back in place. And when Tesh straps on the portable keyboard, leaps off the stage, and runs into the audience with the guitarists and violinist, jamming furiously in front of astonished patrons, it would be wise to have local paramedics on standby. We could have a few cardiacs tonight.

Toward the end, Tesh takes a moment to sit at the grand piano for that just-between-you-and-me chat. If he smoked or drank, this would be the time to do so. “Everything that's happened on this stage tonight,” he says, “it's God’s mercy. God bless you all.”

From the back of the theater comes a small voice, unable to resist: “Praise the Lord.”

And pass the vanilla sponge cake.