Quote:
Originally Posted by dino
Thanks to all of you for sharing your admittedly hazy but exciting memories
to us who weren't around  ." |
Hazy is right. I'm lucky to have any brains cells left at this point.
Someone is playing rhythm guitar on the Swing tape, and it has to be Peter, though you can't really tell. He plays very much a supporting role.
That's Peter, only an unusually subdued version of the PG we all know.
The Fillmore tape has a few Kiln House numbers and 2 20+ minutes jams, where both Peter and Danny cuts loose. Sound quality sucks horribly, though! The rock pile is basically 2 extended instrumental jams, a bit like "Madge".
That's most likely Peter again, only with the robes cast. Never got that far east though.
I can only speak for two shows, and they were considerably different. The Swing was a small concert hall in ol' San Berdoo (San Bernardino) at the old Orange Show Fairgrounds. Been to it many times. It was a hitching post and stage stop for acts rolling up and down California, mostly between SF and LA (Anaheim, Long Beach, San Diego). Many stopped in there only to test out their stuff, make adjustments or set changes, etc. But most acts bypassed the auditorium altogether since it was kind of frayed and beat up, had benches for seating, and the acoustics weren't the greatest. But one thing it always had going for it was that it was always packed to the gills, and the very enthusiastic "inland empire" crowds always let the performers know where they stood!
Back to Mac. When Spencer cut out, Peter got on a plane from England to help out, bringing his old pal Nigel Watson. The band was in a state of panic, having just cancelled their gig at the Whiskey in L.A. Before the week was out, they all converged at the Swing. It was a multiple billing IIRC, but what really stood out was the total calamity of the show. QMS preceded Mac on stage. They were almost as big a wreck as FM at that time, with two of their guitarists "battling" for turf right there on the stage. What a hoot! At one point Valente even challenged the crowd, not sure if he flipped everyone off but there was all kinds of hissing and booing and plenty of fingers aimed his way.
Now remember things were a lot different back then, and that kind of concert scene was not unheard of in the supercharged days of psychedelia. Quicksilver was a jam band so the peeps wanted to hear more of Johnny's (Cipollina) guitar, but ****in' Dino the dinosaur wouldn't have it (too jealous). The whole thing was pretty awful.
A bit later the Mac were up. Peter tried to give Danny support but could do little more than hang in the shadows since a lot of what they were doing was still unfamiliar to him (Kiln House numbers). He only stepped up and cut loose on the extended stuff. Danny tried to compensate but pushing things as far as he could. A lot of pedal work, some really nice grooves in there too, but it was quite an effort. It was also intermittent and definitely less than stellar, as the band looked shellshocked more than anything else, no doubt due to Jeremy's sudden exit. John was the only one who appeared "normal," Mick looked like he was on uppers - for all I know he hadn't slept for days. Christie I can barely recall, being off to one side, but her singing didn't seem quite up to par. Watson may have been playing bongos, but I can't even remember it. Overall, only a so-so performance but understandable considering what had just occurred.
The other event I can speak for in that tour Peter was much more in the mix, but once again things were stilted. There seemed like there was very little magic between him and Danny at that point, who at times looked bored (unenthused would be an understatement; the other members weren't far behind). Sad but there appeared to be a touch of tension between them, with no smiles or attempts to ramp things up to the max. The jamming was now much more to the forefront, with Peter co-anchoring the point. It was erratic at best, alternating between cool flashes of the old Mac with familiar riffs, and a bunch of abstract meandering and offbeat phrasing. Oh Well was still being done instrumentally IIRC, Black Magic Woman was in the mix at some point too. Both were extended jams but not like legend has them, going on for an hour or more. May still have occurred at a later point though, who knows.
I don't think Danny or the other band members were happy with the turn of events though, not losing Pete for good the previous year, then Jeremy's erratic plug-pull on the west coast, then Pete coming back with "terms" which only got more stringent as time went on. They were doing less and less KH material (which they were supposed to be promoting for sales!) that PG never really got into, and since he refused to sing his old stuff, it left them kind of straight-jacketed. Knowing Peter wasn't going to be there in their future, I think Danny started resenting him for wanting to do things "his way" at that point (and thus perhaps the flying bottle incident). Much of the jamming was improv and looseknit, at times poorly structured with riffs not always familiar to the audience. Then they'd cut into something old and cook a bit, only to soon morph elsewhere. Green was off on his own groove at that point, and my feeling was that the band couldn't wait for that tour to end so they could get off that bus once and for all.