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Would we have loved David Cassidy any less had he shown up sans the shag hair feathered just so, if he had, say, favored a crew-cut or a more mannish (if there is such a thing) Dorothy Hamill wedge?

Hair is such a trademark thing. But Carol Day has always seen past the last Cassidy follicle, which by now must surely be reduced in number and battling total retreat.

David Cassidy is so much more than hair and heart-throbittude, she tells us.

"He really is a very fine performance artist," says the 51-year-old Albuquerque vocational rehabilitation counselor, who became a one-woman advertising campaign for Cassidy's concert Saturday night at Casino Hollywood long before the rest of us knew he was coming.

"He really is excellent," she said. "I think that's a wonderful surprise."

She pauses.

"I'm not a crazy fan," she adds. As if we would assume that because, well, it has been more than three decades since his shaggy "Partridge Family" heyday.

"Please don't make me sound like a crazy fan."

So if we mention that she has five autographed photos of Cassidy framed and hanging in her hallway, we will say there is a good story behind it.

So if we mention how she nearly risked life and limb to purchase her tickets for the concert, we will say there is a good story behind it.

But let us talk first about Cassidy because, just perhaps, there's a little crazy fan still dwelling in those of us who remember the nights circa 1970-74 when a character named Keith Partridge (Cassidy, for you young'uns) walked off a mod-colored bus in a velveteen pantsuit, his hair sparkling in the sunlight, and became the pinup boy of our adolescence.

We thought we loved him.

Come on, we got happy.

OK, enough of that.

Day remembers his first - and, until this weekend, only - concert in Albuquerque in 1971 when he was more popular than "Love Story," his kiss-stained poster plastered on many a girl's bedroom wall. She was 15.

"I haven't been to a concert before or afterward where it was so loud and so chaotic," she says of the Tingley Coliseum bash. "We mowed down those security guards like bowling pins."

Perhaps Saturday will be different. The fans, older, grayer, aren't mowing much anymore.

Day points out that even after "I Think I Love You" faded from the radio charts, Cassidy didn't fade for good. He resumed his singing career in the 1980s in England, returning to the United States in the 1990s to premiere a variety of successful glitzy Vegas shows.

Day was there.

She has seen Cassidy perform seven times over the years. Her very patient husband, Stan, has attended five concerts alongside her.

"He's not a bit embarrassed to go," she says like a proud woman who has finally trained her husband to pick up his underwear.

So, back to the Cassidy pics in her hallway. It was the first anniversary of her father's death, she was feeling blue, and Stan knew that a Cassidy concert would cheer her up.

She brought the photos along with a birthday card for Cassidy's 50th.

"I was told over and over by the staff after the show that he didn't sign things, don't bother," she says.

But that didn't stop her. She nicely argued them down, stood her ground with security guards until finally Cassidy's assistant came by. The assistant took the photos and walked away.

"When she came back, she had five signed pictures for me," she says. "It was a tough weekend for me. He didn't know that. He was just very kind."

So the photos stay. And perhaps you can understand that when she learned he was coming through a secret tip from the "Just David" fan club she belongs to, she vowed to be the first in line for tickets.

But when she was met on the phone with confusion over her tickets, she was determined to march herself down to the casino 35 miles away to demand them.

Although she was legally cleared to drive, her depth perception was still distorted from treatment to a detached retina two years before. Driving the busy corridor of I-25 north to the casino was tantamount to a suicide mission.

"I have not driven freeways except for one small trip once," she says. "But I grabbed my keys. I said I need to go now. My husband says `Oh no, you don't. You don't see merging traffic. I'll take you.'"

Forget about Cassidy. How about that Stan?

In any case, they got the tickets.

"Obviously, I don't know David, but it will be like getting together with someone we've known for years, an old friend," she says. "In our teen years, music was so powerful, so important to us. Most of that music was happy. I like happy music. It will be a celebration and great fun."

No crazy fan stuff.

So, David Cassidy, shag or no, look for Carol Day in the front, left side, Row O. She'll be wearing glasses. Stan will be faithfully, lovingly at her side.

I'll be in the far back.