Why were Frank Sinatra’s shows haunted by the putrid smell of urine?
How far would you go to get a good spot at a gig for one of your favourite artists? Are you willing to engage in a fistfight with your fellow fans or perhaps feign injury so that people stay clear of your personal space throughout? Are you one of those people who will camp in the pouring rain to avoid queuing just to ensure you’re the first into a venue where there are no allocated spaces for concert-goers anyway? However far you’re willing to go, fans of Frank Sinatra during his early career were willing to go one step further.
Despite the US involvement in the Second World War in 1943, a young Sinatra was still performing for audiences in his native New Jersey and was racking up a sizeable fanbase despite the turmoil that the country found itself in at the time. It was in this year that he first signed with Columbia Records as a solo artist, where he released six albums before moving over to Capitol for the release of his 1954 album Songs For Young Lovers.
A large portion of his fanbase, as is still often the case with heartthrob performers, were teenage girls who were infatuated with the rakish Sinatra. Much like the Beatles and Elvis Presley would discover in later decades, his concerts were often drowned out by the sound of adolescent shrieking, and if that wasn’t a signal to the industry bigwigs that ‘Old Blue Eyes’ had something special to offer, then his glorious crooning baritone and showmanship would have been an equally good indicator.
For anyone who suffers from sensory overload, then Sinatra’s concerts during this period would not have been the most comfortable place to be, and that’s not entirely down to the hysterical screaming being too much for the ears to handle. In fact, this might have only been the second-most overwhelming assault on the senses that plagued his shows, as the olfactory receptors were forced into action by some truly abhorrent scents.
What did Frank Sinatra’s shows smell like?
Aside from the stench of body odour that one might usually catch a whiff of at a gig, there was also an overpowering smell of urine plaguing the auditoriums he was performing in. While this isn’t an unusual smell to encounter at a hardcore basement show where the toilet facilities are perpetually in a state of disrepair, the loos at Sinatra’s shows were perfectly serviceable – because nobody was using them.
Instead of rescinding their space, audience members were seemingly comfortable releasing their bladders on the spot, especially those who came for the earliest performances of the day and stayed for each subsequent showing. Sinatra would often perform multiple shows at the same venue in a day, and with that, the seats were getting increasingly piss-soaked.
As exciting as it may have been to witness an artist like Sinatra in the flesh, there’s no excuse for these grotesque displays of poor hygiene, and it certainly wouldn’t have been fair to subject other audience members to such a squalid environment. We might not have passed the stage of extreme fandom, but thankfully, we seem to be past the period of soiling our seats at concerts.
