In 1998, we headed to New York City to hang with the Bee Gees in their dressing room at the Ed Sullivan Theater. This is the same theater where the Beatles made their American debut in 1964... and, as you know, it’s the theater currently occupied by the Late Show with David Letterman. The Bee Gees were scheduled to be Dave’s musical guests, and we were scheduled to interview them before the show.
So there we were with Barry, Robin and Maurice Gibb, and as it turns out, we were in the same dressing room the Beatles had used 34 years before!!! The Brothers Gibb were terrific… very warm and funny. They told the story of the week that the movie Saturday Night Fever (featuring their soundtrack, of course), was released back in 1976. They had already moved on to their next project: the big-screen version of Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band (remember? With Peter Frampton and George Burns?). The Gibbs were all crammed into one little dressing trailer... UNTIL the Monday after “SNF” was released. They came to work that day and found three HUGE new trailers with their name plates on them! The movie had made them superstars overnight!
By the way, they took a break from our interview to go down to the stage for a run-through before the Letterman show started. We could view them on TV monitors in the dressing room, and we saw them ask “Can you turn on the heat? We can’t feel our hands to play the guitar!”
When they came back to the dressing room, they said, “We’ll never play this show again! It’s like 45 degrees down there!” Yes, folks, it’s true... Dave keeps the theater VERY cold!
Bee GeesHits on K-EARTH 101, HD-1 & HD-2
Night Fever