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mott the hoople on broadway - zeppelin attendance


jsj

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in '74 mott the hoople played a show and recorded it at the uris theatre on broadway. a big deal for them at the time and queen were their support act. the 30th anniversary live album liner notes state that page, plant and bonham showed up.

mott had many marionettes on, and hanging above the stage for one section of the gig and the notes add that in the backstage chaos, jimmy tried to halt the descending marionettes and that mott roadies had to prevent bonham playing drums on 'all the young dudes'

i quote

dale griffin (mott drummer): "john bonham was prodding me. i was in awe of him and he was out of his head. in the end, i had to hide in the toilet because he kept following me around. eventually, there was a scuffle and one of their road crew booted me in the knee just before we went on. my knee went up like a balloon. it was our first night and we wanted it for ourselves. it was horrible playing with bonham standing in the wings. i was painfully aware of his prowess as a drummer and quite froze, feeling more and more inadequate"

ian hunter (singer): "it got pretty ugly. that's all we needed-our first night on broadway and there were pitched battles going on. robert plant and i just headed for the dressing room. i remember i was walking out on the stage after the show and zep's manager peter grant came up to me as he was leaving and whispered in my ear "sorry about that". i think it's the only time grant apologised for anything in his life"

'mott the hoople live' is an album i've loved since it came out when i was nine, (my older brother bought it when it came out) so i was very happy to get the new expanded version, but i was a bit surprised to read the above in the booklet

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Hoople.jpg

I think I copied this out of Ian Hunter's 70s bio, can't remember, had it in my photobucket for ages - I'm guessing this topic came up on the old forum and I copied it for that.

Here is a part of the Led Zeppelin legacy I can live without.. the beat-downs. Was that really necessary? Prolly not. I can see it's a true story too. 1974 must have been a good drinking year for Bonham. See what happens when you don't keep these early 70's drummers busy playing shows? They get drunk, fat, and not so jolly.. and eventually die young.

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K-Babe, I'll accept your criticism since I'm basing that on 2 drummers, not every rock drummer from the 70's. That said, the conduct of Bonham and Page are a distraction from the music for me. Violence based on unlimited power is a larger issue for me as an American, and I don't like it. I don't like pedophilia either, and I don't mind saying so.

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K-Babe, I'll accept your criticism since I'm basing that on 2 drummers, not every rock drummer from the 70's. That said, the conduct of Bonham and Page are a distraction from the music for me. Violence based on unlimited power is a larger issue for me as an American, and I don't like it. I don't like pedophilia either, and I don't mind saying so.

I'll agree with you there. And I don't find the behaviour of the band to be exemplary by any stretch of the imagination.

But I'll still disagree with the apparent tone of your previous post - for many reaons, the least inflamatory of which being that Bonzo was not at all fat in the period leading up to his death. Anyway, I sort of understand what you were getting at, I just find the way Bonzo is discussed to be quite disrespectful at times - but considering the nature of this thread, cetainly some of your criticism was justified.

Anyway - its 29 years to the day since I met him. Perhaps that made me over-sensitive. I hope you'll join me in a toast to him.

:beer:

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I'll agree with you there. And I don't find the behaviour of the band to be exemplary by any stretch of the imagination.

But I'll still disagree with the apparent tone of your previous post - for many reaons, the least inflamatory of which being that Bonzo was not at all fat in the period leading up to his death. Anyway, I sort of understand what you were getting at, I just find the way Bonzo is discussed to be quite disrespectful at times - but considering the nature of this thread, cetainly some of your criticism was justified.

Anyway - its 29 years to the day since I met him. Perhaps that made me over-sensitive. I hope you'll join me in a toast to him.

:beer:

:beer: To the music and the musician, not the conduct.

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K-Babe, I'll accept your criticism since I'm basing that on 2 drummers, not every rock drummer from the 70's. That said, the conduct of Bonham and Page are a distraction from the music for me. Violence based on unlimited power is a larger issue for me as an American, and I don't like it. I don't like pedophilia either, and I don't mind saying so.

I'm not following any connection of this story to pedophilia, other than the song title of "All the Young Dudes". Is there more to this, or are you just ranting about something that obviously any normal person would have a distaste for?

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knebby, the mott live cd booklet doesnt include ian hunter's last line that was in the quote you posted, about 'shooting themselves in the foot' for not letting jimmy and bonzo join in on the encore, which alters the tone of my quotes somewhat

i'm currently reading the mick ronson book - the spider with the platinum hair.

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dale griffin (mott drummer): "john bonham was prodding me. i was in awe of him and he was out of his head. in the end, i had to hide in the toilet because he kept following me around. eventually, there was a scuffle and one of their road crew booted me in the knee just before we went on. my knee went up like a balloon. it was our first night and we wanted it for ourselves. it was horrible playing with bonham standing in the wings. i was painfully aware of his prowess as a drummer and quite froze, feeling more and more inadequate"

Much as I hate to draw attention to this unfortunate incident, I'm not 100% clear on what happened. Griffin was kicked by a roadie before going on, and then again by Bonzo before the encore, is that it? Poor guy. (I hate the fact that because this kind of incident is newsworthy, it becomes regarded as typical, which it obviously wasn't. A shame for everyone involved.)

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  • 2 years later...

Having listened repeatedly to the 30th Anniversary Mott The Hoople Live collection, I think it safe to say Zeppelin members had no need to be with Mott on stage........for any reason or for any song of theirs.

I still say that sixteen minute rock and roll medley from the Hammersmith show is some of the finest rock music recorded, by anyone........ever.

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