I have never been a big fan of Ted Nugent, but at one point in 74 I REALLY wanted to see some live music and somehow wound up seeing the Amboy Dukes at the Masonic Temple in downtown Detroit—Im glad I went, but not entirely for the music. During the instrumental break in the song Papas Will, the band set off a flashpot on one side of the stage. There was a bright. actinic flash all right—but also a loud BANG! From where I sat in the audience, I had a clear line of sight to where the flashpot had been; I saw a hole in the stage and a bit of debris raining down from above the stage. A stagehand or roadie sorta pulled a rug over it as the music played on. Years later, I found out what had happened. I went with a friend to help a guy with a technical problem in his basement studio in Ann Arbor. When I got there we recognized each other—it was Mike Lutz, who had been a member of Brownsville Station when I worked on their equipment in the early 70s. At the time, he was working with Ted, so after I was done fixing the problem, I mentioned my 74 concert experience. As it turned out, he knew the whole story. It seems that Lurch (Teds roadie) had made an all-too-common mistake. When you set up a flashpot, you are supposed to mix one part black powder to three parts flash powder. This provides good dispersion of the flash powder and a nice, bright flash. What Lurch had done, though, was mix one part flash powder to three parts black powder, hence the hole in the stage. By he way, the same thing happened to The Who during their Smothers Brothers Show appearance—you can see the footage in the Who documentary The Kids Are Alright. It left Pete Townsend deaf in one ear as a result.
Posted on: Thu, 31 Jul 2014 17:37:52 +0000
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