• Hi Guest - Come check out all of the new CP Merch Shop! Now you can support CigarPass buy purchasing hats, apparel, and more...
    Click here to visit! here...

What smoking music are you listening to? (2024)

AVB said:
'It is mid April of 1991 and I hadn't visited my relatives in Wilkes-Barre Pa in 2 years due to an 18 month tour overseas and moving into a new position. It became noticeable in February that there was a lull in my schedule in April so I asked the wife if she could get the time off to go visit with me. Her work said no as she had only been there 3 months but I was free to go provided we see her side on Christmas. So off I went.

Normally it is a 14 hour drive but a case of leadfoot cutit to just shy of 13 hours which got me there just after 6pm Friday night. We had dinner shot the breeze and went to bed. The next day we were supposed to go to the lake (Harvey's Lake for @kann) but it looked like rain and my Uncle wasn't feeling well so mid-afternoon I was told I would be on my own that night. Wilkes-Barre - Scranton is not exactly a hotbed of civilization but I thought I could find something. I open the paper and see there is some local band I never heard of playing in Kingston, the next town over. More local stuff further afield and some places that just said live music. But there near the bottom of the page glowing like a sigh from heaven was: The Psychedelic Furs, Wilkes College 8PM Tickets still availabe.

By 1991 the Furs had been around for 14 years, had gold records and top 10 singles on both sides of the Atlantic so seeing them in Wilkes=Barre was more than a bit surreal. I call the number to see if there were any tickets left - there were but you had to pick them up at the venue. So I change, jump in the car, drive down to the college and buy my ticket with 3 hours to spare. I've got a free space to park in a good location so I decide to walk to find some place to eat and maybe have a few and by the time I got back the doors should be ready to open. Welllllll, even on a Saturday evening there isn't much going on in "downtown" so findind someplace took a good chunk of time but the doors opened 15 minutes after I got back.

The show was sit on the floor or stand, no seats at all and the stage was only about 5' tall with no security barrier. I could actually hook my arms over the stage and just sort oh hang there if I wanted. The show seemed pretty full so if it wasn't a sell out it was close. The band started only 15 minutes late and played 16 songs including the encore. I can hear you saying just how the hell did I know they played 16 song and how could I remember that?

I had their setlist.
And now the rest of the story.

Remember how I said I could hook my arms over the stage? One of the things in reach was the setlist used by Richard Butler during the show. After it was apparent we weren't going to cet a second encore I walked up to the stage and untaped it. Just as I was turning around this guy onstage says,
'Eh, we need that"
"But I want it"
"We need that to go over the show and talk about fixing any mistakes."
"What will you trade me for it?"
" Suppose I could get one og the guys come out and take a picture."
"I don't have a canera and I don't want a picture."
"So whaddayawant"
"I want to meet the band and ask a few questions."
"No,no,no that isn't going to happen. I'll see if one guy wants come out for a minute but you have to give me the paper first."
"Alright deal."

After what felt like 5 minuts I knew I had been screwed but figured I'd give it another minute or two. I'm just about ready to go when Richard
Butler comes out and says,"You're the one giving our manager a hard time. come on then we'll give you a few minutes."

I only asked 2 questions,
The first was to Richard on why he thought, with his unique vocals, he should be the singer
(A) He didn't the rest of the band did, Something along the lines of They're your words who better knows how they should be.
Are American, English or European audiances more receptive to new material?
(A) This was about a 10 minute conversation amongst the band while I just stood there. European. English and America pulling uo the rear.

In July 1992 the Furs went on hiatis - for 29 years.

Click to expand...
Ray, you are like the Forrest Gump of the live music scene! You've just happened to be everywhere cool and sometimes even influential just out of sheer happenstance. I love this story (and not just for the location). As for Harvey's Lake, I don't remember much about the place, but I do know that I saw a few concerts at the amphitheater there -- I can't tell you who or when, but it was most likely sometime between '90 - '96.
 
kann said:
Ray, you are like the Forrest Gump of the live music scene! You've just happened to be everywhere cool and sometimes even influential just out of sheer happenstance. I love this story (and not just for the location). As for Harvey's Lake, I don't remember much about the place, but I do know that I saw a few concerts at the amphitheater there -- I can't tell you who or when, but it was most likely sometime between '90 - '96.
Click to expand...

I thought there might have been a shot you were at this show too given the time frame. I don't have any more from there in my notes but still hsve a lot from The Tower, Factory and Spectrum in Philly. All I remember of Harvey's lake is they had a pizza place my Aunt & Uncle liked.
 
Last week we went back to April of 1991 but this week we will set the Wayback Machine a little further back to April of 1974 at the Ontario Motor Speedway in California for Cal Jam 1. I and another half dozen from my platoon took the bus to LA and then a shuttle to the concert. Now one would think that the weather on the 6th of April would be fairly pleasant and it was until about noon when the temperature just kept climbing eventually reaching the mid 80's.

For a $10 ticket you got to see in order:
Earth, Wind & Fire
Eagles, joined by Jackson Browne (pre Joe Walsh)
Seals and Crofts
Black Oak Arkansas
Black Sabbath
Deep Purple
Emerson, Lake & Palmer

Now you would think that ELP was the headliner but it was really Deep Purple who got to pick the time they wanted to appear and they wanted dusk which was about 7:30. That pushed ELP back to almost a 10pm start time. However, before we get to that point we have the rest of the show. Cal Jam was at that point, the larget concert in the history of the state with an estimated crowd of 175,000 people. The promoters had done well providing a large amount of drinking fountains but nothing besides 8 oz cups to put the water in. With that many people and the high temps the heat injuries started to climb. The promoters came up with a novel idea - air drop. They had planes fly over the audience and drop thousands of empty 1 gallon jugs on us along with 10,000 sun shades. That worked well for a while it was in the 80's but by 6pm when Black
Sabbath finished up it was getting cool.

So it 6pm and Deep Purple has a contract saying they will go on at dusk and there is no act to shoehorn into the next hour so what happens? The crowd gets restless and starts tossing partially filled water jugs into the air. At one point it looked like 2,000 spinning spewing water jugs catching the setting sunlight. It was awesome!

7:30 rolls around and Deep Purple finally takes the stage and proceeds to burn it down. This was the David Coverdale version of the group and they were earning their pay. This was all being recorded my ABC TV for some broadcast later on and you could see the Richie Blackmore was not happy with this trolly mounted camera getting in his way. Just past the half way point of their set takes his guitar and jams the neck all the way to the body right through the lens of the camera. He then yanks it out and continues with his solo. Can't say if this next part is true but I heard that the camera cost more than Deep Purple was paid for the gig. If you ever got to see the TV special it shows the camera signal bursting with light and then going black. ELP put on a good show but that was sorta hard to top.

Don't know if this video shows the camera bit or not.
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top