Rock & Roll Bands On Tour!

Ah yes!  I've always loved hearing wild stories that happened on Rock & Roll tours!  Today I got 2 juicy Rock & Roll Tour stories for all you rock & rollers!


The Legend Of Keith Moon's 21st Birthday Party

In the 1960's and 1970's, many rock bands toured frequently and quite often a party would break out in the band's hotel which would lead to all sorts of madness such as throwing out a tv through a hotel window or setting off fireworks in the band's hotel room...the stories are pretty darn wild.  I think the wildest story is Keith Moon's 21st Birthday Party!

On August 23rd, 1967, The Who were in the midst of their first North American tour, are opening for Herman’s Hermits at Flint Michigan’s Atwood Stadium. Around 10 pm The Who and their entourage headed back to their hotel rooms at The Holiday Inn.  Without warning, all of the inebriated rock musicians went to town with the hotel's fire extinguishers which led to the Holiday Inn staff running wildly throughout the hotel. 

 

Following the invasions of the fire extinguishers, there was an explosion that occurred when  Keith Moon used a lethal firework bomb and blew up the toilet in his room. 

 

The entire tour entourage went to the hotel's ballroom where Moon was presented a gigantic Birthday cake.  Suddenly, a naked woman jumped out of the cake much to the chagrin of Moon.  Within moments a wild food fight erupted in the ballroom. The fight spilled out of the ballroom and into the hotel lobby which immediately caused massive chaos and confusion. It was during this melee that Keith Moon lost the rest of his clothes, which at this point was his underwear.

Just as Keith was seen running naked through the lobby covered in birthday cake, the police arrive at the hotel which led the tour entourage to scatter to various places in the hotel.

 

Moon, fearing that he might be arrested, ran out of the hotel seeking an exit plan in the form of a 1967 Lincoln Continental. Moonie then jumps into the car and quickly releases the handbrake.  This causes the car to promptly begin to roll backwards while crushing a property fence and plunging the brand new car into the hotel pool!

Moon surfaces in the pool after exiting the now sunken Lincoln Continental and realizes he’s surrounded by circle of police who have their guns drawn and pointed at him. 

Not one to surrender to the police, Moon, after getting out of the pool, decides to make another run in order to flee from the police. Unfortunately for Moon, he slips on a soggy piece of cake and hits the deck, which knocks out his front tooth. 

 

The cops are finally able to arrest Moon but before hauling him off to jail they stop at a dentist to repair his broken tooth. Apparently, the dentist reportedly tells the police that Moon is so intoxicated that he doesn’t require any pain killers while he works on his tooth!  After the dentist repair Moon's tooth, the police throw Keith Moon into a jail cell. The next morning Moonie gets bailed out by his manager and is sent on a chartered plane to his next gig in Philadelphia. 

In closing, it should be noted that Keith Moon and The Who were banned forever at every  Holiday Inn Hotel in existence.  Amen!


The Guess Who circa 1969

Burton Cummings On Tour with the Guess Who: “In 1969, an astounding set of circumstances allowed me to spend a whole night with Jim Morrison. Every word of this story is true…The Guess Who flew to Los Angeles for the very first time (at least since I had joined the band). I had never set foot on California soil in my life before this particular night. We landed around eight in the evening, and by the time we had checked into our hotel it was about nine thirty. We were staying in Hollywood on Sunset Blvd. at a place called the Hallmark House. It’s a Travelodge these days.

Dino's Lodge

Whiskey A Go Go

There I was in Los Angeles, right on Sunset Boulevard, where Dino’s and the Whiskey stood. Randy, Jim, and Gary were content to stay in their rooms but I just took off walking...I knew that Dino’s and the Whiskey were both on Sunset and that if I kept walking long enough I was bound to see them. I walked miles up Sunset...from just west of Highland to the Whiskey. When I first saw Dino’s it seemed surreal to me. I continued West on Sunset and eventually approached the Whiskey A Go Go. When I first stared up at it, I had a semi religious experience right there on the sidewalk. This place was a mecca of the rock music world. It had been home and training ground to the Byrds, The Buffalo Springfield, and the Doors. Johnny Rivers had done those great live versions of Memphis and Maybelline here. I stared wide-eyed for quite a while until I eventually regained enough composure to venture inside.

It was now some time after midnight...I had been in California for a total of less than four hours. As I stood inside and looked around, I noticed a rather drunk Eric Burdon at a table in the corner. The band seemed to have finished temporarily, whoever they were, and there was some sort of mass exodus going on. Many people were leaving and they all seemed to have a common destination in mind. I stayed at the Whiskey for about half an hour, gulping in the vibes and trying to imagine all the historic moments in pop music that had occurred within its walls. Then, replete with experience, I went outside onto Sunset to hail a cab back to the Hallmark House in Hollywood. It was 1969...I was 21. 

I managed to get a cab rather quickly right outside the front door and as soon as my ass hit the back seat the driver said 'So...I guess you’re going to the big party too, huh...?' Reacting quickly I nodded in the affirmative. The driver went down Sunset about a block and a half and suddenly made a turn up into the hills above Hollywood. I was on my way to some house in Los Angeles where I didn’t personally know a living soul . As we twisted and turned up the winding streets of the hills, I started to panic. I came clean with the driver and told him that I had no idea where he was taking me, much less who was giving or attending the party he was talking about. He told me that I was his third fare there in the last hour. I was now dying with curiosity. I told the driver that if he would take me to the party, I would pay his full fare up to that point and try to get in the door. I asked him kindly to wait and see if I got in. He said he would wait and see whether I did, and if I was turned away, he would take me back to the Hallmark House and nobody would be much the worse for the experience. 

 

We pulled up to the gate of one of those houses that looks like the one the Beverly Hillbillies lived in...the gate was wide open and it sounded as if all Hell was breaking loose inside the house. I handed the driver thirty bucks and walked up to the huge door and rang the bell. Somebody very drunk opened the door and shrieked 'Come on in' with a thick British accent. I was now inside some mansion in the hills with a real shaker going on, still only having been in California for about four hours. There was loud music...there were a lot of people, all of whom seemed to be blitzed on various things...there were naked people in the pool, and a lot of counters and table tops had lines of various powders on them...I had no fucking idea what I was doing there, so I sauntered into the kitchen and grabbed myself an ice cold Budweiser. 

I walked back out into the living room and spied a cutoff upright piano. No one was sitting at it, so I graced the piano stool and started fingering the keys while surveying the room and the guests. No one could hear me playing with all the noise, so momentarily I guess I just faded right in to my surroundings.

 

Jim Morrison circa 1969

I had been there about twenty minutes when a fairly drunk guy with long hair stumbled in, a girl on each arm kind of holding him up to steady him. Upon first glance he looked familiar ...then it hit me...it was Jim Morrison. Ladies and gentlemen, it was 1969, I was 21, I had first set foot on California soil only a few hours previously, and here I was in some mansion in the Hollywood hills in the same room with Jim Morrison. No one seemed to notice him...well, maybe they did, but just didn’t care. I sure noticed him. The whole night had become surreal at that point, and unbeknownst to me, it was just beginning. 

Jimbo had recently faced the charges of allegedly showing his penis on stage in Florida, and many people thought the Doors might just be on a final downward spiral. They hadn’t played live for a while due to all the negative publicity and craziness that seemed to surround them. When I saw him swill down the remaining beer in his can and go to the kitchen for more, I got up and followed him. In the kitchen, after we’d both gotten a new beer, I went up and asked him 'So, how’s the trouble...how’s the shit, man...?' He looked at me and said 'Oh, it’ll all be ok...' not volunteering much information or willingness to talk. Not wanting to get in his face in any way, I left the kitchen with my new beer and went back over and sat down on the piano bench. I had talked to Jim Morrison. Now I could be a little happier in life, although I already thought that nobody in the world would ever believe me. 

Being somewhat overwhelmed by the evening’s events, I just took a long cold swill of beer and began playing the piano softly. About two minutes later a guy sat down on the bench to my right and started doodling along on one of the higher registers of the keys. It was Jim. We actually played piano together for a few minutes and to this day I have no idea what I was thinking during that period of time...perhaps even Sodium Pentothal could never retrieve those minutes from my memory...I seem to have blanked permanently with regards to our piano duet. But I swear by all that’s Holy, it really happened and I’m recalling it as best I can. 

Jim got up suddenly. He was very drunk and almost fell over when he reached his feet. He said to the two girls 'Let’s go...gimme my keys...' For reasons still unknown to myself, I stood up and said 'Hey man, you shouldn’t be driving...let me drive you where you’re going...just tell me where to take you, and when we get there I’ll hop out and get a cab or a bus.' One of the girls handed Jim his keys and he promptly handed them to me. Off we went. We piled into Jim’s GTO, he and the two girls in the back seat and me at the wheel. I had touched California soil for the first time in my life at about 8:45 pm that night...it was now about 1:45 am and I was driving Jim Morrison around in his GTO through the hills and streets of Los Angeles. 

Jim had about forty cold beers in the trunk, in some sort of metal washtub... one of the girls had brought a few of them into the back seat when we all loaded in. Jim drank fast. The girls barely drank anything. Every so often he’d say 'Some for the driver...some for the driver...' whereupon one of the girls would hand me a cold beer...they were Millers in clear bottles...I didn't really swill much, cause the last thing I needed was to be pulled over with alcohol on my breath...I think Jim’s GTO was silver with a black roof, but it’s decades ago and some details have faded. I kept hearing 'Go left here...go right here...just go straight for now' and other directions from the back seat. 

I drove the three of them around until after sunup. During those hours I spoke very little to the back seat. I was more than content to listen. I never once mentioned that I was a musician, much less the biggest Morrison fanatic in North America. After all...how many million other people thought the same thing, and how many fucking times had Jim heard that already...? He spoke about physics, existentialism, Magritte, the blues, and Edgar Allan Poe among other things that night. Surreal, surreal, surreal. 

I think it was about eight in the morning when they decided one of the girls should drive and I should be cut loose from the herd. I never argued over the decision.  I had already lived a personal dream, and wanted to do absolutely nothing to taint it. They dropped me off right where the Sherman Oaks Galleria now stands and took off due west on Ventura Blvd. A series of busses and a cab got me back to my motel on the other side of the hill by about ten in the morning. I had no idea of the geography of LA, but I managed to get back before any pressing Guess Who business that day. I was rooming with Jim Kale that trip and when I came in that morning, I told him how I had spent my first night ever in California...he never believed a word of it...neither did Randy or Gary... 

To this day I cannot explain the happenings of that night…All I can say is that it really happened, for whatever reasons. Whether anyone on Earth believes me or not is irrelevant to me…I lived it and I have the entire affair firmly ingrained in my memory banks…I'm only re posting this tonight because so many people wanted to read it for the first time…”


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