At dinner on Friday night I met the bass player from Pete's first band,
the Panthers, who was a very nice guy ( John Horrell ).
He was very self deprecating about his musical abilities and said that
he knew that Pete would go places with his career, but didn't really
ever think he would, which turned out to be true, unfortunately for
him.
During the weekend we also met Ron Griffiths and his wife and had a
good
conversation with him, and also talked to Bob Jackson for quite a
while.
I asked Bob about that last tour in 1974 when they toured with Man, and
if he had ever come across any recordings or video of any of the shows,
which I would love to get. He said that thought he had an audio tape of
some of the shows at one time, but not anymore, and that if I ever get
anything along those lines he'd really like a copy. Bob says that was a
great tour and the band was very tight and had a lot of fun.
The convention day on Saturday was spent looking at the hundreds of
photos and press releases that were posted on partitions around the
hall, plus looking at about three hours of Badfinger video. I had
already seen most of it but there were a couple of TV appearances and
promo films (for Maybe Tomorrow for one) that I saw for the first time
there.
A highlight was Bob Jackson's one man show on Saturday night. The crowd
was over the original 150 people (including the Hams and Ron Griffith
and the Panthers guy) as some other original band family members had
shown up by that time. When I talked to Bob earlier in the day he had
said he was very nervous about the show since he's always played with
three or four other guys on stage before. As it turned out, it was
literally a one man show. Bob set up his keyboards, amps and guitars
and, by himself, played some of his own songs he's working on for an
upcoming solo CD, and also a lot of Badfinger material. He played his
tracks from Head First plus several other Badfinger cuts, including No
Matter What, Day After Day, Just A Chance, Moonshine, and several more.
Although he of course didn't sound like the whole band at all, he
really caught the heart and soul of those songs and did a great job up
there. As he had predicted he would be, you could see he was very
nervous through most of it, but when he started playing each time he
sounded very good. It was an inspiring performance.
As Bob's set progressed, a group of people in the back of the room
started jabbering away, talking louder and louder, and really starting
to disrupt the procedings, as Bob wasn't playing all that loud. Some of
us turned and glared at the offenders with not much effect and a few of
us yelled at them to pipe down, which only made them lower their volume
for a minute before jabbering away loudly again. Talking to Keith James
about it afterward (Keith organized and put on this
amazing event), he said he didn't want to tell me who specifically
those idiots were (my description, not Keith's), but they were from one of
the band's family's who showed up unannounced and had demanded to be let in
for free since their family member had been in the band. He said he had
reluctantly decided to do that. Several of them asked for an event
program Keith had put together, and demanded them for free too, which
Keith decided to do too.
Toward the end of Bob's set he talked Ron Griffiths into getting up and
singing Come And Get It with him. Ron was reluctant to do it at first
since Keith, planning that out ahead of time with Bob, had
unsuccessfully tried to find a bass for Ron to use. Ron said he never
sang in public without playing the bass too, but got up and sang the
song with Bob anyway. It was a terrific moment, with much of the crowd
singing along with them.
Someone on a discussion board has apparently claimed that Joey
Molland's name had been booed at the convention. This is absolutely not true. I
was there for every single minute of the event and it never happened.
The only thing that could be construed as booing was when a few of us
yelled at the people who were loudly talking while Bob was doing his
show.
Another completely false statement I've heard is that Dan Matovina, who
gave an emotional tribute to the band before and after Bob's set, said
that he, Bob and Ron are the only surviving members of the original
band. Nothing even remotely like that was said by anyone there, and
especially not by Dan. There was nothing said that could in any way be
taken to resemble anything about that made up account. I can only
guess the motivations of why anyone would claim that this took place, and
since that would be a guess, I won't do it.
A funny thing that did happen was that some lady in the audience kept
calling for Bob to play "Fisherman", no one's favorite Badfinger song,
I think. There were quite a few laughs about that. Bob good naturedly
brushed that off and finally said something to the effect that he
didn't remember the words anyway since he wasn't in the band when they
recorded it, and they never played it while he was.
Another very interesting person I met and talked to a lot at the
convention was one of Pete's girlfriends, Sandie, who apparently no one
knew about until the convention. People were skeptical about it until
she showed her photo album from those days with her with Pete. From the
pictures there's no doubt she was there and was very good friends with
him. She told a very interesting story on how she had met Pete and the
band and the time they spent together.
On Sunday we did the bus tour of some Badfinger/Iveys landmarks in
Swansea that Keith had organized. Included was that we got to
visit Pete's tiny family row house where he grew up and Keith had arranged for the family there now to have us walk through the house
and grounds. We also stopped by Ivey Place (from where the Iveys got
their name) and took pictures of a permanent sign noting the location
that the city had put up at Keith's request.
It was a great weekend and well worth the effort to get to the UK to be
there."
"I had a great time at last month's Badfinger Convention. I met some of
Pete Ham's extended family and spent a lot of time talking to them. The
Hams were pretty overwhelmed by everyone who showed up (I think about
150 people). Everyone at the event who I talked to and listened to (and
that was almost everyone there), viewed the weekend as a very positive
celebration of our favorite band.
|
Here are Steve´s Great Photos from the Event! | |||||
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| Ron Griffiths with his wife at the Friday dinner. | John Horrell from Pete's first band, the Panthers. | Sandie (Pete's onetime girlfriend) on the left with her
friend Peggy. They were both a lot of fun to talk to. |
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| Convention hall. | Exhibition Photos! | More photos and posters! | |||
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| Exhibition! |
Exhibition! | Apple promo picture of Badfinger as a trio after Ron, and before Joey. Were they thinking of carrying on that way? | |||
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| Tom's wife Marianne with Bob Jackson. | Bob and Marianne again. | Steve Sage (on the right with the hat) with Keith James. | |||
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| Bev, another Pete girlfriend and good friend of the band, with Bob Jackson. |
More from the Exhibition | More from the Exhibition | |||
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| Bob playing and singing. |
Bob playing and singing. | Bob with Ron Griffiths doing "Come And Get It" | |||
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| Ham family members with Pete's daughter, Petera, in the middle. |
The Hams with Bev at the far right. | Steve with Ron and his wife. Dan Matovina's on the far left. | |||
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| Getting ready for the Sunday bus tour. |
Steve and Jane. | Bob and Pat Allen. Pat is Pete's cousin. A great couple. | |||
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| Pete's family's row house in Swansea, where he lived as a kid. |
Jane in Pete's family house backyard. | Looking up the street to the Ham row house. | |||
