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With the benefit of hindsight
Mike Eriksson (of the Deep Purple Forever Swedish fan club fame) has published on his blog a lengthy interview with Glenn Hughes. The interview was conducted in 1996 by himself and Coast To Coast editor Lennart Hedenström, and covers many things — some educational, some inspirational, some boisterous, and some — with the benefit of the 20-year hindsight — quite naive.
ME: Let´s spend a few minutes in the past before we talk about the current things. Here´s a question about the 70s. I read somewhere that Tommy Bolin had asked Robert Plant to sing with him at some stage. Was that just a rumor or is that something that you know about?
– Robert was introduced to Tommy by me. They had a friendship happening there. As far as any working relationship I didn´t know anything about that. It´s possible. Might be a rumor but it could be possible. Tommy, as you know, was very varied in his musical taste. I don´t think that Robert might have done it, but… it probably would have been interesting.
ME: With the Zeppelin connection, I wanted to clarify a thing that happened in New York on the last tour, with John Bonham strolling up on stage…
– Yes, absolutely…
ME: OK, what happened exactly?
– John Bonham and I have a history together. We were friends. Trapeze was John Bonham’s favorite English rock band, and he used to take me to gigs in his car, and he would jam with Trapeze on the encores. So John was a very good friend of mine. The night we played at Radio City Music Hall, in NYC, the second night, he was very drunk, and he wanted to come on stage to tell the audience about the new, “Song Remains The Same”, film coming out. So he got the microphone, and he was very drunk, and he started playing around, you know. And after that it took me… Well, something happened really bad that night. I mean he was out of his mind and he started getting a bit strange.
Read more in the Trinkelbonker
Thanks to Mike Eriksson for the info.
Unauthorized copying, while sometimes necessary, is never as good as the real thing
I remember that, I was there that night. He was onstage talking for a bit about Zeppelin and also onstage for the encore “Highway Star” and if I remember correctly at some point I think he had a tambourine in his hand. This was 40 years ago so it’s difficult to remember everything.
May 16th, 2015 at 13:17I also attended the show that night when Bonzo came out on stage and took the microphone I remember him introducing himself and then a few praises for Ian Paice’s drum solo and he was also trying to get Deep Purple to come back on stage for one more song He was absolutely wrecked I was in the fourth row center and you could just see how far gone he was. I went to both the Radio City shows that tour
May 17th, 2015 at 01:54@ 2
Hey Joey,
Tell me since you were there too, is it just me or was it kind of sad to see Purple with that line up. To be honest with you I spent most of the time watching Lord and Paice because the other guys, it just didn’t seem right. I was in the 10th row so we were not that far from each other and I think Glen and Tommy were kind of wasted also. I hate to say bad things about the band I love but I knew the end was coming soon. Your thoughts?
May 18th, 2015 at 12:08At George If you remember the second night, Tommy Bolin totally screwed up the opening song, ,Burn. The rest of the band looked at him when he did, and you could see the look on his face, that he was lost but recovered quickly. To be honest, the band wasnt good either night, but I did like Come Taste The Band. Tommy was a tasteful player when he wasnt wrecked. The studio stuff was good, but the cracks started showing in the live performances. In Bolins defense, I met him two months before he died and he was a real friendly guy He looked happy, healthy and relaxed. It appeared that he had tried to clean his act up, but pressures apparently mounted and he went on a final tragic binge. What a shame, so sad
May 19th, 2015 at 21:04@ 3 I was at Wembley George and they were awful. Tommy in particular. I was about 15 years old and had been playing guitar a year or two. I remember thinking that I could do a better job than him that night and seeing the Phoenix Rising CD I wasn’t far off 🙁
May 20th, 2015 at 08:53