After two years, Cold fans still care
by Katheryn Krotzer 
Times-Picayune (March, 1984) 

"Realizing that it was over and there would be no more encores, the drained but satisfied audience disbanded and dwindled away, heading for the door, or the bathroom, or the bar... all except
for one girl, leaning against a pole, crying as if Barbara Menendez's departure from the Cold were the most wrenching moment of her life."


It's been almost two years since this writer wrote the preceding paragraph about that evening of skirt-wrenching, head-bobbing sorrow on the Riverboat President - the night the mini-skirted Menendez said farewell to the audiences who had danced and sweated through two years of Cold double-set concerts, supposedly in order to attain happiness in a world revolving around marriage, a baby and normalcy.

The "Do the Dance" mural on the Interstate 10 overpass was replaced by one reading "Do the Dishes."   Although the band would continue briefly without Menendez, that night was more than a farewell to the New Orleans music scene with 2300 Cold fans looking on.  It was kind of like the end of an era.  But did anyone ever say that goodbye was for always?

So last Saturday night another sellout crowd - many of whom had been present for the 1982 farewell performance - again packed the President.  But although the enthusiastic crowd was totally immersed in dancing and singing along to the songs that had filled the airwaves and dance floors of earlier summers, it was the latest local gossip that kept them entertained between the two sets.

Those who were in the dark as to why this reunion was taking place were brought up to date by those knowledgeable ones who knew all "the dirt" because they had friends who had friends who had cousins who had friends who worked with / knew / were related to members of the band - or their friends.

"They're getting $10 for each person here - that's why they're having the reunion," declared a tall boy three people away from the edge of the stage.  "The only reason they broke up in the first place was because of bad management.  My friend is a deejay and he knows all about it.   Wait right here, and I'll go get him."  

A girl in a Chinese-print top and headband overheard this and disagreed to her girlfriend: "That's not it.  Babs left the Cold because she was getting married.  Everybody knows that." 

Her friend, a petite brunette sipping one of the two beers her date had just handed her, was skeptical:  "But if that's true, how come she was in Apt B?"  "Because that guy, you know, her husband, was in Apt B.  I went to see them once.  I didn't like them as much as I liked the Cold."  "I don't know.  I was too pissed because they had broken up the Cold to go and see them."

A few feet away, the conversation between two teen-age girls centered around the fate of bassist Vance DeGeneres.

"Well, is he still gonna be with the Backbeats?  I betcha if the Cold do real good tonight and at Jimmy's (this coming Saturday) he'll leave the Backbeats.  I betcha anything."

"Stupid, the Backbeats are breaking up!"

"Huh?  Naw, not the Backbeats, huh?"

"You didn't know that?  God, I thought everyone knew that."

"C'mon, not the Backbeats!  Now we're not gonna have any more decent bands. 
Where'd you hear that?"

"My friend has this friend who has a class with one of their girlfriends, or something - I don't remember.  But they're going to break up next month."

"How come?"

"Paul, Fred and Vance are going out to California to see if they can make it."

"But what about John and Steve?"

"Gee, you're so stupid.  Whatcha think they're gonna do - quit their jobs and leave?  They're married.  But Vance isn't going to go if the Cold gets a record contract.  They got somebody from some big record company out here tonight just to listen to them."

"Really?"

"Yeah, why else would they get back together?  Gee, you're so stupid."

Where there were no major discussions loaded with revelations of great importance, single unanswered questions dangled:

"What's this about Kevin (Radecker) working at Gaylord's?"  "Wasn't that Chris Luckette in the Popeyes commercial?"  "Whatever happened to that band, you know, the Submarines or something like that, the one that Bert (smith) was in?"

The concert continued with a second set and encores.  When it was over there were no tears, no wailing, no head-banging, no nostalgic sighs, no gossip, only "They're playing next week at Jimmy's -
wanna go?"

And then this week came the word: Vance DeGeneres has left the Backbeats and the Cold has reunited, with plans to play a coupla of dates a month here and to put together a professional-sounding demo tape.  There'll be plenty for the faithful to gossip about Saturday night at Jimmy's.