Silver Laughter was booked at a ballroom, I don’t remember where, but it was a nice big venue with a fair stage. I remember looking for the best spot to run the light cables and the sound snake as the stage was on the side of the building not the end like I thought it would be. Well I really had no choice but to heavily duct tape the cables to the floor, which just happened to be the dancing area. (Lots of Duct tape).
I had the sound and light boards set up along the opposite wall from the stage and on both sides of me were patrons. Did I mention it was a New Years Eve gig? It was, so needless to say there were a great many heavy drinkers, not that it was a bad thing but it makes for a situation of having staggering drunks in very close proximity to thousands of dollars worth of equipment.
Now as luck would have it I had noticed a very pretty girl at the table just to my right. She was with friends all partying in the new year. We made eye contact and I even got a few smiles from her. We played an extra set that night due to the Holiday. I thought I may just be able to get to know this girl better, when about half way through the last set I noticed her slumped forward, obviously pretty drunk.
Well without going into graphic detail lets just say she lost everything she’d been drinking as well as breakfast, lunch and dinner. The pretty girl just became less desirable, and the worst part was I had to peel all the duct tape up off the floor which was now a sea of spilled beverages and… well, you get the idea.
From that day forward if I could run cables across the ceiling I did. I also took note of just how much the “pretty girls” were drinking during our shows. I always looked at the pretty girls though, drunk or not! That’s Rock-n-Roll.
Glenn “The Punk”
Note from Mick: Looking back at the booking calendar for 1978, it may have been either the Valhalla Ballroom in Slayton, MN or the Showboat Ballroom (can’t find the town it was in) on the New Year’s Eve when Glenn was with us.
Categories: History