March 26, 2008
One Last
Night at the Palace

Au revoir Crystal Palace.  Last Wednesday Jan and I strolled through the crisp air of a Pitkin County late afternoon that, in reality, was a walk down memory lane.  

In early December, Dot and Greg Hoskin happened to find themselves in an Aspen lift line standing next to Crystal Palace entrepreneur and piano player extraordinaire, Mead Metcalf.  After complimenting Mr. Metcalf on the many evenings they’d spent dining and laughing in his stained glass, chandeliered nightspot at the corner of Monarch and Hyman in downtown Aspen, Mr. Metcalf acknowledged the praise but went on to say the spring of 2008 would mark the Crystal Palace swan song.  After fifty years of delighting Aspen audiences, the building housing the Crystal Palace was in the process of being sold and the Metcalf’s were planning a Crested Butte retirement.  

So the decision was made to spend a couple of days schussing the slopes of Snowmass with one last Crystal Palace performance of political in-correctness put to music sandwiched in-between. 

What a terrific evening.  Memories came tumbling back as the performance combined not only material based on today’s political environment, i.e. a number detailing how Eliot Spitzer views tax “relief”, but we were also allowed an oh so nostalgic return to our initial Crystal Palace visit almost forty years ago when we first heard Mr. Metcalf’s at the piano serenade of the non-sensical  “Peanut Butter on my Chin”. 

It was 1957 when a young, piano playing, Dartmouth grad, Mead Metcalf, opened the Crystal Palace.  Back before Buttermilk, Highlands or Snowmass, a time when the only way up Aspen Mountain was on Lift #1, a single chair, and Aspen had dirt streets. Into this economic un-certainty the Crystal Palace was born.  It didn’t take long to become an Aspen landmark. 

The concept of a quasi dinner theater where the stars of the show are the same folks who took your order and served the drinks and food was not an original idea.   Nor are music and lyrics devoted to the eccentricities of everyday life and the machinations of the political scene unique, i.e. Mark Russell or the Capitol Steps.  But no venue seem to put it all together as well as the cast of characters populating the spotlight under the monstrous chandelier at the Crystal Palace.  Plus the Palace is, or soon will be “was”, Western Colorado’s own.  

Last Wednesday night as we roared at a new number from this year’s show, “The Minneapolis Airport Men’s Room Old Soft Shoe” or laughed at a favorite from the 80’s, “Middle Aged Boy Band” , one couldn’t keep from pondering the passing of some our Western Colorado treasures.  The Red Onion, the Coor’s Classic bike race and its downtown Grand Junction criterion, Guyton’s Fun Park and the Chief Drive-In. 

No announcement was made as to the actual date of the Crystal Palace’s final performance.  But I’d recommend you make a reservation and spend an evening with this most talented cast before the ski season ends.  Is it expensive?  Of course.  C’mon we’re talking Aspen.  But the memory of an un-forgettable evening will linger far longer than the charge on your credit card.  Some things can’t be measured monetarily.  An evening at the Crystal Palace is one.