Blackfoot

The Rewards
1979-1982

    Spring, 1979: The "Blackfoot Strikes" tour begins in March or April, and goes on continuously through the year. Radio stations all over the country are playing various songs from the album, but they didn't key in on any one particular song until around mid-year, when "Train Train" hit the charts. That's when things really started rolling. The band is declared to be "a (10-year) overnight success".

    Sept. 9th, 1979: We finally get out of the van and into our first tour bus, and we are ecstatic. We have just repaired and upgraded all our gear, and take along about 15 guitars, 6 old Marshall stacks, 4 Ampeg SVT's, a new Tama drum kit, plenty of strings, drumsticks, heads, and other supplies, on tour with REO Speedwagon.

    On the morning of Sept. 20th, we were in Long Beach, Ca., sitting on the bus in the parking lot of the Holiday Inn high-rise, waiting for the crew to bring the equipment truck around from the rear of the hotel, to follow us to the next town, since we had the night off. We watch the crew leave the front door of the hotel, walk around the building to where the truck had been parked, and come walking back without the truck, looking completely stunned.
    The 22' rental truck with all our equipment was gone, with no insurance on the gear OR the truck.
    Within hours, co-manager Jay Frey and one of the crew were on their way to pick up three guitars, amps, and drums from Nalli's music store in Ann Arbor, get a new rental truck in Detroit, and drive to meet us in El Paso two days later.
     The rest of us called our old friend, guitarist Danny Johnson, now living in L.A., who volunteered to loan us guitars and equipment for the show at Swing Auditorium in San Bernardino the next night (where I remember breaking new strings one after another on my borrowed guitar, sitting on the drum riser to change them).
    We played on our new gear at the Coliseum in El Paso the following night (I broke strings, doors, and knuckles THAT night).

    Dec. 7th, 1979: While in Ann Arbor recording the "Tomcattin" album, we open for The Who at the Silverdome, in Pontiac, Mich. It's only the third show they've played since the deaths of several fans at their Cincinnati show several weeks earlier, and everyone is nervous, but the show goes well.

    Spring, 1980: "Tomcattin" is released, our second album for Atco Records. We go back on the road, opening for The Who for their entire Spring tour. ("Blackfoot Strikes" is certified "gold", and we are presented with our first gold albums after a Who show at Toronto's Maple Leaf Garden on May 5th).

    Fall, 1980: A U.S. tour with AC/DC; then, our first trip to the U.K., with the Scorpions. Eventually, by late in the year, we are back in Ann Arbor, working on our 5th album (the 3rd for Atco), "Marauder".

    Early 1981: "Marauder" is released, and we go back on the road.

    Aug. 22, 1981: We play the Monsters of Rock show at with AC/DC and Whitesnake at Castle Donington Park, in England. Immediately after our set, we go to the local airport to catch our rented private plane and fly to Germany for the Summernight Festival (SEE PHOTOS), buzzing the Donington stage as we leave. During the flight, noxious fumes in the cabin (caused by my eating chicken curry several days in a row) force the pilot to open his window; he eventually lets Medlocke take over flying the plane for a while.

    Oct. 18-Nov. 22, 1981: A fun little tour, with Def Leppard (Pete Willis on guitar) opening for us. The bands get along real well, but as happens on some tours, the threats of "just wait until the last night" began to come, initially from the Leppard camp. The last night of the tour finally came, in San Antonio, Texas. Since Blackfoot was the headliner and was to play last, Def Leppard would get the parting shot, so we decided to make our first shot a good one (with Ted Nugent a few tours earlier, it had been raw egg fights in Detroit's Cobo Hall).
    When Leppard hit the stage in the San Antonio Convention Center at 7:45 PM on Nov. 22, all Hell broke loose. A large "DIK LIKKER" backdrop unfurled behind the band. Riggers in the lighting trusses dropped ping pong balls to the stage, first 2 or 3 at a time, then handfuls, then bushel baskets full, followed by flaming streamers of flash paper. Fumes from stink bomb fluid on a towel thrown in front of drummer Rick Allen's electric fan filled the stage. When lead singer Joe Elliott exhorted the crowd to "put your hands in the air", our band and crew were hidden behind the amp stacks, with only our arms and waving hands sticking out. When Joe yelled to the crowd "we were in Houston last night, and they made a lot more noise than you're making", a stagehand on an offstage microphone boomed "oh nooo they didn't!".
     The audience had no idea what to make of all this mayhem. After all that, it turns out that Def Leppard had been bluffing, and really had nothing planned for our set. While we were playing, Leppard bass player Rick Savage dribbled a basketball across the stage, and then someone tried to shove a big commercial-size laundry basket across the stage, with one of their girlfriends inside. The basket makes it about half way across, and there the poor embarrassed girl is, sitting in the center of the stage, stuck with her ass in the in the basket and her legs hanging out from the knees down, for probably a minute, until someone came out and wheeled her and the basket offstage.
    We had a great time with these guys, and I'm real happy for their success.

    Winter, 1981-'82: We rent a house on the bank of the Suwannee River outside Mayo, Fl. The plan is to get away from the party atmosphere in Ann Arbor, where we usually went to write and rehearse, and go to a place where there would be nothing for us to do but write.     Even after a couple of months there, we still didn't have the right material for the next album.

    Mar.22-May 23, 1982: Back to Europe: touring France with Iron Maiden; a headline tour through the U.K., recording "Highway Song LIVE" using the Rolling Stones' Mobile (the album was released in the U.K. only); then touring Germany with the Scorpions.

    Summer, 1982: Touring the States, then, briefly, back to the U.K. in August to play the Redding Festival (where we join our buddies Iron Maiden onstage during their set, jamming a version of ZZ Top's "Tush", with all 4 guitars, 2 basses and 2 drummers.

    Back in the States, our record sales are starting to decline. Manager Al Nalli takes the band to see the movie "Rocky III" (the one with Mr. T), to inspire us to fight harder against adversity.