We Were There When... Magician Spade Blew Us Away With A Card Trick That Went Wrong... Or Did It? #CoffeewithColm
I was mortified!
Here he was, world-class Magician Spade as my guest on The Coffee at Eleven Show and his pièce de résistance was going horribly wrong. I tried to cover for him. I pretended it was my fault. That was until he sideswiped me (and the live audience) and left us speechless!
You HAVE to see this.
Ladies and gentlemen, magic happens in live entertainment when all involved walk away dying to tell someone, "We were there when..." This cannot happen every time but it occurs when a sprinkling of something touches performers, crew and audience alike. And it happened several times on The Coffee at Eleven Show.
This is one for the annals.
We Were There When... Magician Spade Blew Us Away With A Card Trick That Went Wrong... Or Did It? #CoffeewithColm
Enjoy in your preferred way... But for this one, we recommend video!
- Watch the video (highly recommended)
- Listen to the podcast
- or, read the transcript below
Yours Truly: Ladies and gentlemen, very good morning. You are more than welcome to yet another episode, episode 74 of The Coffee at Eleven Show, brought to you by Wig-Wam.ie, SME Peer Support. Delighted that you've chosen to join us, thank you for being here. And in particular, I want to thank my very special guest. Very interesting man, this morning, Steve Spade. Steve, you're welcome to The Coffee at Eleven Show. Please say hello and show us your coffee mug.
Steve Spade: Hey guys, don't worry. Actually, I didn't get a chance to make a coffee yet so I'm just going to put this bag here.
It's better than making coffee, it's quicker and it's easier. Guys, there's my coffee mug there.
Yours Truly: Fantastic, fantastic.
Steve Spade: Black coffee as always.
Yours Truly: Excellent Steve, excellent. Well, listen, you're very welcome. That's some entrance. Steve, thank you for going there because I know you've had a special relationship with your dad, probably still have a special relationship with your dad, even though he's passed on. It was very strong, strong bond there wasn't it?
Steve Spade: Oh absolutely, a hundred percent. I mean, even mean what I do, but he could see the passion in it. You know what I mean? I'm passionate about the things as well, obviously, but he could see that he was always a driving force. He loved me entertaining people, or he loved seeing their reaction. He kind of lived for that reaction. He'd be like, "Oh, do a trick for such and such." He just wanted to see them react to what I could do. And he used to tell people, "Oh, my son's a magician. He can turn water into wine for you." And even when he passed, in one of his jackets, I found just a big stack of my business cards. Yeah, those little things are, it's nice to know that he was proud.
Yours Truly: Ah, Steve, that's just a lovely story. And against the backdrops, Eamonn, thank you for that lovely picture. That's the picture? [crosstalk 00:13:19] Gorgeous. Beautiful, beautiful image, beautiful image. And I love that, your dad, when he passed, you found a stack of your business cards in his pocket. Wow.
Steve Spade: Yeah.
Yours Truly: Happy days. Happy days.
Steve Spade: More than one pocket as well, actually. But he was always doing that, he was always giving people my business card and telling people. He was always proud. The last stunt he saw was my blindfold drive, and him being a mechanic and stuff, he was big into that one. He thought it was great. He thought I was crazy, but he always thought I was crazy so there was no difference there.
Yours Truly: Great stuff. Eamonn, thank you for that lovely picture. Perfect timing, thank you for that.
Steve Spade: He even got interviewed that day that I did that stunt in the race course, the blindfold drive. He got interviewed actually by Live 95 because they were interviewing me, and they had a word with Dad, and it was great. He was always front and center with all that kind of stuff.
Yours Truly: It's lovely, I was watching Janie Lazar there from Dublin, and she was leaning in and gave you the bualadh bos when you started talking about going and doing a photo shoot with your relatives because they won't always be there.
Steve Spade: Highly recommend that, anyone they can do it. It could be a family member, it could be a friend or whatever, but just book. Even after the COVID everything has opened up and everything, just book a photo shoot. I'm sure the photographers will want wanted the business, and just enjoy it. Just enjoy the day, just do whatever study do you want. I wanted to do that Victorian style so I decided top hats and tails, and just that kind of gentleman thing, I just wanted to do it. We tied it in with Movember because Dad always had a mustache and things like that. And it was all the cancer prevention for men and all that. I was always trying to help show a little bit of light towards that as well.
We use the images for that as a campaign. I went around and I did close up magic on the street and we raised money from Movember around that time. It all worked together, it worked really well, so it was really, really good. But I definitely recommend that, it's just a fun thing to do.
Yours Truly: Listen, you mentioned closeup magic. You mentioned closeup magic, and you had me buy a deck of cards. Ladies and gentlemen, no expense spared. Two euro, two euro. Look at this, right? No expense spared. Unopened, until we go on screen here. Steve, let's do something. And Eamonn, you might line up the explosion piece for later, before we go to Q&A, that'd be great.
Steve Spade: Cool. Colm, if you want to just open the box and just take off, there'll probably be a seal and everything. And you'll have to open them and all that. Yeah, talk amongst yourselves, I'll fill it with something. Actually, hang on, I'll fill it with this is. This will be handy after the recession. Anyone who wants to learn this, just send me an email and I'll tell you.
Yours Truly: I'm laughing away here, that was just great. Doubled your money, doubled your money.
Steve Spade: Just send me your fivers in the post and I'll send them back to you as a 50, no problem.
Yours Truly: Oh, was it a 50? Forgive me, I was looking at a small screen, I apologize. 10X your money, there you go. 10X your money.
Steve Spade: Yeah. Perfect, yeah. Just give them a mix.
Yours Truly: Okay, taking the two Jokers out.
Steve Spade: Please, yeah.
Yours Truly: So left with 52 cards. You want me to give them a mix, yeah? I don't play cards so this is going to be awkward as-
Steve Spade: That's perfect. I'm just going to come in a little bit just so we can see just you mix them, that's perfect. Yeah, you're mixing them perfect. That's ideal, great.
Yeah, and you're just going to slowly just spread the cards from the top like this, so people can see.
Yours Truly: Facing the camera Steve, yeah?
Steve Spade: Yeah, just spread away.
Yours Truly: Okay.
Steve Spade: Just put your thumb on the back to this and just spread from the front. You're just going to show them like this so everyone can see them.
Yours Truly: Is that working?
Steve Spade: Yeah, yeah. Just keep spreading through so they can see that they're mixed.
Are they mixed?
Okay. That's fine, that's cool. Yeah, so now you're just going to put them on your hand like this.
I'm going to have to take the camera back here so I can put them on my hand like this.
You can bring them up like that, yeah. Bring them, yeah perfect. You're just going to cut off a few cards, 10 or 20 cards.
Yours Truly: 10 or 20 cards.
Steve Spade: Yeah, and just going to flip them over and put them back down.
Flip them over and put them back down.
Yeah, so you don't have cards face up. Is that right?
Yours Truly: Yep.
Steve Spade: Yep and you're going to go a bit deeper now. So maybe 40, 50 cards, whatever. And flip those over and put them back down.
Yours Truly: 40, 50 cards, flip those over and put them back down. Okay, cool.
Steve Spade: Colm, if you want to bring the cards out of the shot now so I can't see. Yeah, so if you look down or you'll be looking at face up cards. Yeah?
Yours Truly: Yep.
Steve Spade: You're just going to spread through and soon enough, you'll find one that's faced down and then you'll find half the deck will be faced down.
Yours Truly: Okay.
Steve Spade: You'll see.
Yours Truly: Out of shot I'm spreading, I'm looking at face up cards here now folks. And I've just come to the first face down card. Is that right?
Steve Spade: Wait, take that face down card and take it away from the deck.
Yours Truly: Take the face down card and putting it over here away from the deck. I haven't looked at it.
Steve Spade: Perfect and now get rid of the deck completely.
Yours Truly: Get rid of the deck completely. Two euro folks, down the drain. Don't worry about it.
Steve Spade: You'd be happy that I don't know what card you could have cut to.
Yours Truly: Steve, not only do you not know, I don't know.
Steve Spade: Okay, perfect. You don't know and that's fine. Have a quick look at it now and we'll continue.
Yours Truly: Okay.
Steve Spade: Sure you have it?
Yours Truly: I'm sure I have it.
Steve Spade: Okay, perfect. Just taking the card, say it over on your mind and look at me. It's either a red card or a black card. It's a red card. Okay, good man, Colm. It's either a heart or a diamond. A heart? Very interesting. It's an odd or an even, just think odd or even, odd or even. And just say it over in your mind like three of hearts, three of hearts, three of hearts, three of hearts, three of hearts, three of hearts. Is that what it was? It wasn't three of hearts?
Yours Truly: Nope.
Steve Spade: Okay.
Yours Truly: I suppose I'm caught up in the production here as well as being your Guinea-
Steve Spade: It's okay, it's okay. What was the card? Because I'm picking up the three for some reason.
Yours Truly: It's an eight and it was at eight of diamonds.
Steve Spade: Eight of diamonds. Okay, quite similar to the three of hearts, but that's okay. [inaudible 00:19:49] interesting is, I have a new deck of cards here.
Yours Truly: Okay.
Steve Spade: And they're all in new deck order. You said an eight of diamonds wasn't it?
Yours Truly: Eight of diamonds, yeah.
Steve Spade: Eight of diamonds. I'm going to go ahead and take out the eight of diamonds, just to it's fair. Take this. Eight of diamonds.
Yours Truly: Eight of diamonds, yeah.
Steve Spade: I'm going to leave the eight of diamonds, I'll leave it here just inside my shirt so you can see it the whole time. Because on the back of these cards there's a little stick figure. Can you see that? And if I move it up along, you actually see him starting to change, just a little bit. You see him start to actually crawl into the cannon. See that? You said the eight of diamonds. I was picking up the three of hearts and it's kind of weird, and I'll tell you why in a second. And if you watch the cannon, watch, he's going to climb into the cannon, he's going to throw the cards up in the air. He's going to dive in, he's going to grab one card on the way out. He's going to grab your card. That you didn't even know that you'd cut to. The eight of diamonds.
Yours Truly: Oh my goodness, Steve Spade. Right, show's over folks.
Yours Truly: What's it been like in COVID? What are you expecting will happen for your industry post-COVID?
Steve Spade: Yeah, it's a strange one. I mean, nobody was ready for the, "World is closing, fasten your seatbelts." Everyone's had to adapt. I mean, I've been lucky in one way that I've been able to do a lot more of these meetings and interviews with people. I've been doing some podcasts and things with some magicians in the states. I did one the other night in California, I did one in Los Angeles, and I've done some local ones as well. And I'm actually considering setting up my own podcast for magicians because there isn't that side of things in Ireland that much. But it's good, it's just good time to sit down and be creative too, and just kind of get ready.
Because I mean, when it comes back and it will at some point, because entertainment like this, like what I do has been around since the Pharaohs in Egypt. And a lot of things have happened since then, and it's never died out. The first documented trick was the cup and balls, and it was done for Pharaohs. It will come back around. It'll be a little bit different, it might be more online, it might mean more interactive. It might be more stage magic, close up magic might be a thing of the past, and maybe it'll be more stage or illusion. I don't know, but I'll be ready to adapt whatever way it is.
Yours Truly: Great stuff, great stuff. Round of applause there, round of applause.
Steve Spade: I know you probably missed it Colm, because I turned that the fiver into at 50, but I'll show you the trick that everyone hates.
Yours Truly: Ladies and gentlemen, that is COVID just there.
Steve Spade: Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's it in one trick.
Watch the full interview here: https://youtu.be/DfGFwAbljno
Connect with Spade here: https://www.dhirubhai.net/in/steve-spade-79144b95/
Come back next week for another installment of "We were there when..." from a guest who had Coffee with Colm on The Coffee at Eleven Show, brought to you by WIG-WAM - SME Peer Support