November 2011 Archives

OUR gigs at the Whisky a Go Go had been a huge success.

But after a wonderful 1969 week in the 'City of Angels', we loaded up our U Haul trailer once again, hitched it to our rented Dodge sedan and hit the road again.

Our route was due North. Our destination: the the hippy capital of the world, San Francisco.

This was the city, of course, "where little cable cars reach halfway to the stars" and where you had to "be sure to wear some flowers in your hair!"

If you believed the Scott McKenzie hit, that is.

In spite of a week of mellowing out in Los Angeles you wouldn't find these five working class lads from England's industrial heartland Birmingham wearing any flowers in their hair!

We were in San Francisco to rock - and rock we did!

Greatest

Being put on the same bill as Joe Cocker's Grease Band and one of the greatest rock 'n' rollers of all time, the brilliant Little Richard, was all the incentive we needed.

Plus we were playing two sets a night at the legendary Fillmore West, where almost every great Sixties group had played, and where every great Seventies group would go on to play.

Our gigs at the venue were recorded for posterity and are about to be released as a double-CD set titled (surprise, surprise!) The Move Live At The Fillmore.

These were some very special performances.

We knew that they were the last dates of the long-awaited American tour.

We hoped to return to the East Coast to play the venues in New York and Chicago that we'd missed due to our visa problems, but Britain was calling.

It would soon be time for us to go back home to Brum.

Don't miss the concluding part of my US tour diary next week to see how the gigs went, and what we played.

SO there we were, trundling along Route 66 on The Move's 1969 tour of the USA, stopping often to take photos of the old Wild West.

It was all going fine until we pulled in to Hank's Truck Stop in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

As we were filling up with petrol, some real redneck cowboy types began taking the p**s out of Roy Wood.

Woody had his hair down past his shoulders and one of these cowboys, who resembled Mongo from Blazing Saddles, began tugging it.

"Hey are ya a boy or a girl?" he demanded.

"We want no trouble," we said. "We're English!"

We assumed that would end all conversation immediately.

But no.

We had just started to get back in the car when other rednecks began shouting "Cissies!"

Our road manager 'Upsy' Downing then made an appearance, after paying for the petrol.

Trouble

"What's the trouble?" he asked. "These guys are in a band and they're with me."

Now, Upsy fancied himself as a bit of a hardcase, but the smallest of the cowboys hit Upsy just once on the jaw and down he went like a sack of spuds!

We dragged him into the car as Carl hit the accelerator, dust flying everywhere and the rednecks chasing after us, yelling and screaming: "Come back here and fight, you English faggots!"

We didn't stop again until we finally checked into a Holiday Inn in Flagstaff, Arizona.

Since leaving Detroit we had travelled around 1,700 miles over two days and a night.

To put it mildly, we were all completely shattered, but after a coffee, Coke, hamburgers and eggs we set off to complete the last 500 miles of our epic trek through Kingman, Barstow and San Bernadino, finally arriving on the Pacific Coast and our destination of Los Angeles.

Upsy somehow got all five us into one room at the Continental Hyatt House Hotel on Sunset Strip, a place where he had stayed before when working with our pal Jimi Hendrix.

We were checked in for a full week and got into a nice routine, spending half the day by the luxurious, rooftop swimming pool.