Half way through the Supertramp World Tour and after Christmas at home we all meet up for the European leg, in the cold month of January.
Production rehearsals have been booked at the Brixton Academy.
Meanwhile in the intervening years, I have remained good friends with Rick Davies, and in 2014, invited to his 70th birthday bash, I recorded him telling me about the early yearrs before Supertramp, and a good story it iis too, check it out below
My complete itinerary in the gallery above with daily notes. It was to be another challenging tour with the weather this time upsetting the rhythm and forcing the tour to extend further in time than we first planned.
It's back to work after Christmas and a chilly old London is where everyone reconvenes for some production rehearsals before the tour commences in France. My old friend Roger Searle has taken over from Patrick Whitley as production manager for this stint, and of course, Roger is well known to everyone at Supertramp, having been one of the site coordinators for the European Tour of 1983. We have the Brixton Academy reserved for us to put up the sound and lighting systems we are taking from the UK on tour with us. Not the warmest place to rehearse I have to say, although I recall we got our tour caterers to come down and make sure everybody had a decent lunch and lots of hot tea and coffee. The link to the Academy, is a history of the theatre which I think fascinating, and it was of course, orginally called The Brixton Astoria Theatre.
Click title or image to play
Earlier this year I was invited to Rick Davies 70th Birthday bash in America and took the opportunity to get him to tell me some stories of his career before Supertramp. Highly amusing they are too, as he recalls in great detail his adventures in the early 60's winging it in Europe' playing in dodgy clubs for dodgy owners, it's very funny indeed.
Click to enlarge
Click to enlarge
With 17 shows on the European leg of this tour being produced in France, Pascal Bernardin of Zero Productions was THE important promoter of this tour. With his lovely wife Catherine always by his side, Pascal did a fabulous job to sell out all his shows. I first worked with him in 1980 in France when touring with XTC and The Police and he is still at it all these years later. I met up with them both in '09 at Ricks 65th birthday bash and then he promoted all the French Supertramp shows in 2010 and 2011.
Click to enlarge
Click to enlarge
The 31st of January was to become a very interesting day as a tour manager. The whole crew, trucks and crew buses were stuck, in snow, at the Spanish - French border crossing, with only one cafe phone to share between everyone stuck there for 3 days and nights. Well, what do you do, apart from apologise to the band a thousand times for putting their luggage on the trucks. It seemed a good idea at the time as the band entouage were going to have a short 2 hour train ride around the coast from Barcelona to Avignon......
It was Roger Searle who kept me up to speed with the situation at the border. 4 artic trucks and two sleeper buses full of crew. There was one phone at the roadstop at the border. Roger phoned his wife Sheila, who was back home in the UK and Sheila kept in touch with me, who was waiting in Zurich for instructions where to go next, and when. No mobile phones in these days.
Click title or image to play
Micky Curtis and John Rivett. I don't know how many tours I've been on with one or other and mostly both of these guys driving trucks. To this day still mates and great to still know and see them.
Mr Mark Hart. Mark went on in the '90's to join Crowded House and what an amazing multi-instrumentalist he truly is, he's also quite a nice bloke too :) xx
We never let anyone on their birthday be alone for long. John invited a few folks round for a chat or was it the other way round, and a small drink, or did he.....see the rest of the photos in the gallery
Something always happens when crew get dancing
Mr Marty Walsh, super guitarist extraordinaire xx
Guy, Norman, Mick and Curry
Here we have an example of Ricky and the Rockets, hard at work after a show. Somewhere downtown normally, in a club venue, the guys would play the blues and Mr D would get behind the drums for a stint. Absolutely no Supertramp songs allowed, it was a great way for the guys to relax after a big show.
Click title or image to play
Mrs D having a good time after the last show of the World tour. Curry Grant finally got rid of that drinking hat, or maybe he just kept it in his room this night....It was a party in Berlin, and we took over a club for the night. It was a pretty good bash if I can remember half of it.....
The party after the last show, in Berlin, got off to a great start with a house band, and inevitably the band slowly took over the stage. I recall a few select dancers got up on stage, not sure I can show those photos, but it was a good night.
Mrs Searle got to write up the itinerary for the shows we had to rearrange after the snow storm on the Spanish border stopped us for about a week. Very amusing header sheet too I must say and a very nice touch if I might add. The laundry thing on the road is always a headache, especially if you get caught in a snow storm...
The extra shows also got us to England for a couple of shows, which were not originally in the itinerary. I think I called Mel Bush and he put together two shows quite swiftly, one of them being a Princes Trust show in front of Charles and Di. I'll tell you all in the audio clip. From a tour managers point of view it was interesting talking through the re-scheduling with our Insurance agent Willy Robinson. It saved him or rather the underwriters, quite a lot of money as they only had to pay out the difference between the insured loss of the 4 shows we missed and the extra costs to do 4 more shows.
Click to enlarge
Click to enlarge
