Columnist Spencer Patterson: Colvin uses fame to educate about depression

Spencer Patterson

Friday, Aug. 6, 2004 | 8:49 a.m.

Shawn Colvin realizes fans might not understand how a musician with a No. 1 hit to her credit can suffer from clinical depression.

That's a major reason why the 48-year-old singer-songwriter has become a spokeswoman for Beyond the Music, a national awareness campaign focused on the disease she was diagnosed with at age 19.

"I assume people reading this or in the listening audience may be skeptical, for whatever their reasons," Colvin said in a phone interview from a New York City hotel room. "That's partly why I'm doing this tour, because maybe by doing this they will have a better idea why their mother is acting this way or their sister or their son or whatever."

Colvin, whose 1997 single "Sunny Came Home" reached the top of Billboard's Adult Contemporary and Adult Top 40 charts, performs at 6:30 p.m. on Saturday at the Clark County Government Center Amphitheater. Tickets are $10 in advance and $12 at the gate.

Colvin, who will play a solo, acoustic set, doesn't speak about depression during her shows. Instead, she conducts print, radio and television interviews on the subject wherever she goes, in hopes of educating the public.

"I've never not wanted to talk about it, but it's not something you just kind of slip into the conversation," said Colvin, who is speaking about her depression publicly for the first time.

"I was approached to be spokesperson in this campaign, and I jumped at the chance. There's a stigma about it that's unfortunate. And it really is treatable."

Dr. Norman Sussman, a professor of psychiatry at the New York University School of Medicine, joins Colvin during her press sessions, providing answers to common questions about depression.

"Some people just have trouble understanding why someone who's successful would be depressed," Sussman said. "But it's a disease. You don't have to be doing anything wrong to get thyroid disease. It just happens, and the same thing is true with depression."

Sussman explained the difference between the normal sadness that most individuals experience from time to time and clinical depression.

"If a relationship doesn't work out, if you get divorced, if someone close to you dies, you're going to feel sad, but you're still going to go on with your life," Sussman said.

"Depression as an illness goes on for some time. If you go through a period of at least two weeks where you suddenly lose interest in things; if you have hobbies or sports or sex or whatever you normally enjoy and seem to totally not care; if you have trouble getting motivated for anything; if there's a change in your appetite, those are signs."

Colvin, who has taken medication for her depression for nearly two decades, recommends that anyone who suspects they have the disease visit www.depression.com for more information.

After that, she and Sussman suggest depressed individuals consult with their family physician or with a specialist.

Colvin said that performing helps her cope with her depression, terming it an "escape."

"It does help. It is an escape, an escape from thinking. Thinking can be my worst enemy," she said. "The problem with going to a show is that I have to get there. The singing part is great, but there have been points in my career ... when it was hard to get myself out the door and on the airplane.

"But your audience should rest assured that I'm doing great and I'll be on the plane to Las Vegas."

Music notes

Vamos!: On Wednesday the recently reunited Pixies canceled their scheduled Sept. 28 show at UNLV's Cox Pavilion, just 12 days after tickets went on sale.

Without providing specifics, a Cox Pavilion spokesperson said that "a good amount" of the tickets, all of which were for general admission, had been purchased. The venue was expected to hold between 2,700 and 3,500 fans for the concert.

"From the research I had done, they would have been fine," the spokesperson said when asked if the show was on pace toward a sellout.

The Pixies' Los Angeles-based publicist painted a different picture, however.

"It's a bizarre situation," Heidi Ellen Robinson Fitzgerald said. "They sold 19,000 in Chicago, 16,000 in Atlanta in under seven minutes. Unlike Chicago and Atlanta and Minneapolis and San Francisco, the place (in Las Vegas) did not sell out in under seven minutes.

"With the Pixies, you've got seven minutes or you're out of there."

Fitzgerald added that she wasn't entirely sure if slow ticket sales were the only reason for the cancellation.

"A lot of cities were probably announced before they should have been," she said. "To say that it was simply a ticket issue may not be entirely accurate."

Robinson mentioned that routing issues have forced cancellations in other cities, but according to the Pixies' official Web site, the band has two days off between a Sept. 26 show in Berkeley, Calif., and a Sept. 30 stop in Denver.

Robinson also said she didn't know whether the band might be considering rescheduling its Las Vegas stopover -- originally slated for a Tuesday night -- for a future weekend date.

Refunds are available to ticket holders at original points of purchase.

Time to kill: Las Vegas band the Killers are featured in the "Hot List" cover story in the current issue of Rolling Stone as the magazine's "Hot Band."

"What's all the fuss about? One listen to the Killers' irresistibly hot rock will tell you what," the piece's headline promises.

Test time: The Las Vegas Jamband Society has announced the lineup for its fourth "Area 51 Soundtest," a three-day festival scheduled for Oct. 8-10 at Indian Springs Casino.

On the bill: Sound Tribe Sector Nine, which will play two nights, Col. Bruce Hampton and the Codetalkers, Tea Leaf Green, Signal Path, MamaSutra and Olospo.

Prices run from $50 for three-day passes and $20-$30 for single-day tickets. Tickets are available at www.tickets.lvjbs.org.

Quick hits

A look at a few of the shows scheduled to hit Southern Nevada in the next week:

Pedro the Lion, an indie-rock band fronted by a born-again Christian with a sometime religious message, plays the House of Blues at Mandalay Bay at 6:30 tonight.

Tickets cost $12 to the all-ages event. Starflyer 59, Tilly and the Wall and Western State open the show.

British rocker Rod Stewart brings his "From Maggie May to the Great American Songbook" tour to Las Vegas for the second time this year. He performs at the MGM Grand Garden Arena at 8 p.m. Saturday. Tickets are $79-$184.

In May, the 59-year-old vocalist played The Joint at the Hard Rock Hotel.

Country crooner Faith Hill fills in for Celine Dion at the Colosseum at Caesars Palace for four upcoming dates: Tuesday and Wednesday and Aug. 13 and Aug. 14.

All four concerts begin at 7:30 p.m. Tickets are priced from $87.50 to $175.

On sale

Maroon 5 plays Rain at the Palms on Sept. 12. Tickets are $50 and go on sale at 10 a.m. Saturday at the Palms' box office, at TicketMaster outlets, by phone at 474-4000 and at www.ticketmaster.com.

Taking Back Sunday lands at the House of Blues on Oct. 17 with Fall Out Boy, Matchbook Romance and the Sleeping. Tickets are $15 and go on sale at 10 a.m. Saturday at the House of Blues box office and through TicketMaster.

Nonpoint teams with Skindred and Strata for a Sept. 9 show at the House of Blues. Tickets are $13.50 and are on sale now through the House of Blues box office and TicketMaster.