3 shows I remember

Show #1

On October 13, 1972 we were booked for a show with Bob Hope at the convention hall in Wichita, Kansas.  The hall was packed.  (5,000 seats)  As I remember we began our opening song and immediately the power to our stage went out!  Pat just took over.   With no PA system he started into his "Don Rickles-like" put downs of the local celebrities until Jerrel and I could get the power situation fixed.  It was hilarious and our part of the evening turned out fine.  However, Bob Hope did not hear or see our part of the show.  After Bob's performed, his agent (Bob Bixler) wanted Mr. Hope to see us perform.   He asked us if we could set up in the hotel for the "After Theater Party".  This was not part of our plans and without knowing the set up situation at the hotel, we said yes.  It was a big mistake.  You see, the only place in the hotel that was big enough to accommodate the "after party" crowd was the area around the indoor swimming pool.  We set up at one end of the building (Lots of hard surfaces) and Bob Hope literally sat at the end of the diving board at the other end of the building.  The sound was terrible and we had used all of our good material in the show earlier that night.  The people were standing around the pool eating "hordouvers" and could not respond.  Needless to say, we never heard again from that agent.

Show #2
May 23, 1973 we were booked to open for Roberta Flack at Hofhienz pavilion (10,000 seats) in Houston.  This was at the height of her popularity (Killing me softly).  That day we were at Hofhienz pavilion at 2:00pm ready to set up for the concert which was supposed to begin at 8:00pm.  The plan was to get a "sound check" from Ms. Flack and her orchestra and then we could set up and get our "sound check".  The problem was Ms. Flack did not show up for the sound check!  In fact she did not enter the building until 9:00pm that night!!!  (no sound checks) The crowd was very upset because the concert was starting so late .  When we finally started our part of the show, the audience was very hostile towards us, but we got through our part OK.  Ms. Flack's performance was also flawed because of  the sound.  She did not start singing until after 10:00pm 

This performance was bad for us in two other ways.  (1) We had scheduled a concert at Jones Hall in Houston for the next week and we were using this Roberta Flack Concert to promote our HEW concert at Jones Hall.  After the reviews came out, none of the press decided to attend our concert because "they had seen us at the Roberta Flack Concert".   (2) We had also invested in the Roberta Flack Concert.  Cormo Productions had spent money to bring Roberta to Houston with the stipulation that we would be the opening act for the concert.  Consequently, we lost our investment because so many people wanted their money back.

Show #3

We were booked for a one month stay in Las Vegas at the Showboat Hotel and Casino.  The gig paid very well, but the job was difficult.  The night club at the hotel was the"only" place where customers had to pay for their drinks.  We did three shows a night.  (9:00pm, 11:00pm and 1:00am)  The performances were to be exactly 30 minutes long (no deviation)  This was difficult for us since much of our show depended on our interaction with the audience. There were a few nights where our audience was one drunk passed out at the bar.  We also had major problems with the Musicians Union in Las Vegas.  We were already members of the American Federation of Musicians (AFL-CIO), but the local chapter wanted  extra "performance fees" because we were not members of their chapter (scary guys).  We told them to "bill us" and after the gig we never paid the bill!