Originally Posted by Villavic
The Penguin Summer Safari was after Rumours, in 1978. Once again Mick's book helps us:
That summer, we took a break from recording and embarked on the Penguin Country Summer Safari 1978, beginning at the Alpine Valley Music Theater in Wisconsin on July 17 and then moving to a monster show at the Cotton Bowl in Dallas on the 23rd, where we topped a sold-out show supported by the Little River Band, Bob Welch (whose French Kiss was now a nationwide hit!), and Steve Miller. At J.F.K. Stadium in Philadelphia on the 30th we played with the same group, except that the Sanford-Townsend Band opened. We played a dozen more stadia that July and August, flexing our collective muscle as the Biggest and the Best in the Land. Let the punkers rant about the dinosaurs, we laughed, as we watched our fans fill up arena, coliseum, and bowl.
Did this spectacle give me joy? Did the old gigster enjoy being back on the road? The answer is no. It was the summer my father passed away.
But yes there were som shows during 1976:
By early June we were hip deep into the project, and the end was not in sight. "The Chain" was still a hodgepodge of several different riffs and songs. "Don't Stop," written for John by Chris, was half finished. "I Don't Want to Know" was recorded at Wally Heider's studio. Chris wrote "Oh Daddy" for me, the only dad in the band. "Songbird" was recorded in an empty university auditorium in Berkeley with a mobile unit. I said it should sound like Chris is sitting alone at the piano after a concert, when everyone has gone home.
At that point, we had to leave off recording for a while and go out on the road for most of the summer. Fleetwood Mac was still climbing the charts, a year after release, and it looked to us like we could give our chart-busting fellow British blues exile Peter Frampton a run for his money if we had another
hit single and our summer tour with the Eagles did well. To this end, we released Chris's "Say You Love Me" in June (the flip was "Monday Morning"), and it too went right to the top.
Rehearsals for the summer tour began on June 4 and lasted ten days. Six months of studio frustration and claustrophobia were unleashed, and the band roared as I'd never heard it before. Off we went on June 18, opening at Royals Stadium in Kansas City. This leg of the tour consisted of three acts us, Henry Gross, and Jeff Beck. Then to the Omaha Arena, the Iowa State Fairgrounds, the Pine Knob Music Theater in Michigan, then all around Wisconsin, Minnesota, North Dakota, and Illinois. On June 29, we played Busch Stadium in St. Louis with Jefferson Starship, Jeff Beck, and Ted NugentThen to Riverfront Stadium in Cincinnati.
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