Nov 06, 2009 (Herald and Review - McClatchy-Tribune Information Services via COMTEX News Network) --

The cancellation of a performance is never good news.

Even if just a handful of people have purchased tickets, their plans are wasted. Refunds must be acquired. (If they're unfortunate enough to have ordered from TicketMaster, some fees are irretrievably lost.) Show producers are out a payday, the venue is out its revenue, and the performer has to scramble and find a new site, if possible.

Everyone ends up a little embarrassed: the site, the promoter, the performer, the city.

Comedian Gallagher, who made his name in the 1980s with "The Sledge-O-Matic," a huge wooden hammer he used to smash food objects and splatter front rows of his audience, was to have played the Decatur Civic Center tonight, in a "no-smash" show.

Limited ticket sales -- reportedly a mere 50 tickets were sold -- forced the cancellation of the show early this week.

Herald & Review entertainment reporter Ashley Rueff wrote in her DecaturAde blog (herald-review.com/app/blogs/decaturade) this week: "Most of you probably were unaware that Gallagher, the fruit-smashing comedian, was scheduled to perform at the Civic Center this Friday."

Well, unaware unless you looked at this page last week and saw a note about it in the left-hand column. Or unless you actually looked at the Herald & Review and saw advertisements for the show.

The show was self-promoted by Gallagher and his team, who claim to put on 100 shows a year. Maybe in some places, the 63-year-old's name is enough to sell tickets. Apparently here, it is not. If Gallagher and Co. put any effort into promoting the show, it was well-hidden. All contact between the Herald & Review and the Gallagher camp, for instance, was initiated here.

In Decatur, some of Gallagher's problems come from an issue nearly a decade old.

In the 1990s, Leo Gallagher -- the famous one -- was asked by his younger brother, Ron, for permission to tour smaller cities around the country, doing the older brother's older material. The agreement worked for years, but it turned sour when Leo felt Ron was blurring the lines between the acts and giving audiences the impression the older brother was working locations he was not.

One of those locations was Decatur's Lincoln Square Theatre, where Ron was booked in June 2000. Threats and recriminations between the brothers backed that show up to July. Herald & Review readers were well aware of the difference in the shows; then-staff writer Billy Tyus detailed those differences in a June 2000 article.

In August 2000, older brother Leo filed a lawsuit against Ron, and the "sequel" show was ultimately halted.

Decatur audiences remember that incident. At least one call to the Herald & Review had the caller asking, "Is this the real Gallagher or the fake one?"

That's more Gallagher's fault than anyone's, and while the issue may be unfair, it may have been a factor in keeping Decatur ticket-buyers away.

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