After spending the Australian summer of '81 in Sydney with Icehouse through Jan, Feb and March, I got to spend a further summer still in '81 in London, and there's quite a bit going on.
I think it was in July when Paul Loasby, who hd been very sucessful promoting Rainbow over the last couple of years, asked me to help him out by going to South America for a month, on a mission to set up a complete tour of South America for the band
Lots of bits and pieces going on through the summer of 1981. I see the Pretenders for the first time, and I've found rare footage of Steve Harley at Hammersmith Odeon working with Rick Wakeman on a live show for his album 1984.
Icehouse fly into the country and they are doing some shows in the UK. I get to hang out with them and it's nice to catch up with them after working for 3 months in Sydney earlier in the year. I have kept an itinerary they were given when they got here by their record label Chrysalis and I've scanned it into a gallery above. It is interesting to Icehouse fans I hope, I'll find out what reccordings were done here at the time as they were booked into Battery Studios for several days. I note TBA International are their agents, now TBA is Ian Wright and John Giddings' company and I am always working with them around this time.
There's a note in my diary on July 10th that I'm out with Adam Ant on a blind date with Cathy and Tessa, two page 3 girls.......wow
This story actually ends up quite strangely with me getting the sack. You see I'm setting up an American Tour for Adam and the Ants during this period and sometime after this social event took place I was called into the office by Don Murfitt, Adam's manager and told I had got the sack!!! So I asked Don why, and he replied "I have no bloody idea Richard! sorry". And you know to this very day I have no idea either, it can't be anything to do with my job as a tour manager, so my only guess is the fact that at the end of that night out together I ended up taking home one of the girls and he didn't like that!!! Strange old world sometimes eh?!!
I am assisting Paul Roberts from Sniff n the Tears in setting up a tour of Europe and helping them with a budget and having meetings with their agents Asgard, and Paul Fenn, as well as with the record label Chiswick records. I personally do not go on the tour with them. Rehearsals are at Nomis Studios, and as I recall all goes well for them as I go off to America on a social trip.
I'm also involved a little with Steve Harley doing a ONE OFF show in London at the Venue, Steve is in rehearsals at E-Z Hire in Market Road in early August
Well September 12th and we'd been planning this for a while. My best mate Richard Garland has invited me to his younger brother Charles's 21st Birthday bash. It was to be held in a moated tudor mansion and was strictly a black tie event. We thought we'd go one better and arrive as Cavaliers, so we did, big time with rapiers, the big hats and the rest of the costume as you can see. We were off our faces but we did go down well with the ladies xxx to them all...
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On arrival in Rio, I booked myself into the Copacabana Hotel, directly in the middle of the beach of the same name. The photo above is the first I took, from the balcony of my room. I stepped out and looked at this vision and realised, I think for the first time in my life, how alone I was, thousands of miles from home. It dawned on me that this job was going to be quite a challenge.
Aftr my initial stay in Rio I move to San Paulo and then back to Rio, finally flying off to both Belo Horizonte and Porto Allegre. I discuss with the promoter the routing in Brazil for the four shows they want to promote, and the fees they are willing to pay. The other issue while I'm here is the production in Uruquay,.....there isn't any......so I'm having to discuss using the stuff here in Brazil.
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It seemed a daunting project, but exciting and different and had never been done before, and, I was up for a challenge..
Paul Loasby, my friend and by now a promoter in his own right, asked me if I could help him set up a continental tour of South America. Paul was the exclusive promoter in the UK for Richie Blackmore's band Rainbow at this time and they had a desire to go there before touring in the US early in '82.
My mission was to connect up a series of countries together and route a tour around the whole continent, and at the same time personally check out each venue and the production companies that would provide the sound and lights for each show.
The following day or maybe two a guy called Morris Hughes, an expat flew up from San Paulo to meet me. Morris ran a PA company in Brazil and he brought up all the specs to his equipment for me to write down. He also acted as a translator for me and introduced me to the local Brazialian promoters.
Morris took me to a gig he was doing at the National Hotel. Roberta Flack was performing, what a beautiful voice, and I go to take a few photos of................... equipment lol
During this first time in Rio de Janeiro I met with the promoter and Morris and was taken to the world famous football stadium in Rio, the Maracana Stadium
It was the preferred place at the time for big European bands to play, and Rainbow were in this bracket of crowd pullers. Deep Purple had been hugely popular in South America and Rainbow was going to try take advantage of being the replacement....
So the job at hand in each city I visited was to take notes and photographs and 16 mm film footage of each venue, and production equipment where possible.
This is one of two venues I was taken to whilst in Santiago Chile, Teatro Caupolican. In 2010 I was at this very same venue with a Japanese band 'X Japan'. The venue past it's best but still the only viable 5000 seater in the city. Check it out, a lot of bands/artists come play here still
https://www.teatrocaupolican.cl/html/videos.html
The fascinating place that was Montevideo at this time were the vehicles of the city. I had never seen so many vintage cars and trucks before in one town. It was like you had taken a time machine and gone back 50 years. The other outstanding memory I have is of utter amazement at the colour of the ocean. It is the mouth of the Rio de la Plata and it is milk chocolate brown.
Below is the picture I took of the view outside my window in Montevideo. The other side of the square was the official government building of the President. I can see the two ceremonial guards pacing back and forth in the front of the building, very colourful they were but I wasn't about to go take any pictures of them. This is from wikipedia
Gregorio Conrado Álvarez Armelino (born November 26, 1925 in Montevideo is a Uruguayan general and former dictator. He served as the de facto president of Uruguay from 1981 until 1985.
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It was close to the end of my trip that I was in Caracus and on my biirthday too. The local promoter very kindly organised a dinner party in my honour and the guests all signed the back of this photo to the right.
A charming thing to do for a 29 year old Englishman abroad.
A lot of the venues were outdoor stadiums. It sort of made it easy production wise in as much as we just had to build stages and lighting wise we weren't going to need to do much
