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."

Here are Steve´s Great Photos from the Event!
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.
Convention hall.	Exhibition Photos!	More photos and posters!
Exhibition!	Exhibition!	Apple promo picture of Badfinger as a trio after Ron, and before Joey. Were they thinking of carrying on that way?
Tom's wife Marianne with Bob Jackson.	Bob and Marianne again.	Steve Sage (on the right with the hat) with Keith James.
Bev, another Pete girlfriend and good friend of the band, with Bob Jackson.	More from the Exhibition	More from the Exhibition
Bob playing and singing.	Bob playing and singing.	Bob with Ron Griffiths doing "Come And Get It"
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.
Getting ready for the Sunday bus tour.	Steve and Jane.	Bob and Pat Allen. Pat is Pete's cousin. A great couple.
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.

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Badfinger Convention 2006
From Steve Sage, who attended the Badfinger Convention 2006, I have received this great report.
Enjoy Steve's photos!!