In this episode, Doug recounts a wild Queen concert in Chicago where fans bombarded Freddie and the band with eggs, transforming a moment of chaos into an unforgettable performance. He shares the hilarious tale of convincing his reluctant wife to attend a Smithereens concert, only to be caught in a sudden downpour, drenching them both. Doug's passion for collecting concert ticket stubs and his cherished Heart concert T-shirt from a 1976 Auditorium Theater performance offer touching glimpses into the past. With a musician's perspective, he delves into how he views concerts he attends and provides an amusing glimpse into the pressure musicians feel when the tables are turned, and fellow musicians are in the audience.
Doug describes his experience at a Queen concert in Chicago where fans began pelting Freddie and the band with eggs. He talks about the time he convinced his reluctant wife to see a Smithereens concert outdoors, only to be drenched in a sudden downpour. He expresses his passion for collecting concert ticket stubs and discusses the sentimental value they hold, providing glimpses into the past. Doug also describes his most prized possession, a Heart concert T-shirt that he got when he saw the band at the Auditorium Theater in 1976. He discusses the intimate setting and acoustics of the venue, highlighting the unique experience of watching a band in a space designed for music.
Throughout the interview, Doug provides insights into the perspective of a live music fan who is also a musician, explaining how he pays attention to instrument details, gear, and performance nuances. He also provides an amusing glimpse into the pressure musicians feel when the tables are turned and fellow musicians are in the audience, and how sometimes, mistakes go unnoticed.
To see bonus materials for this and other episodes, including transcripts, photos, articles, and other show artifacts, visit https://www.seeingthemlive.net or https://www.seeingthemlive.com. While you are there, check out our blog articles, links to historical resources for live music events, and out ticket stub museum where you can see images of fan ticket stubs. If you believe you have an exciting concert story to tell, go to our website and click on the "Become a Guest" link and fill out the form. As we like to say, "Everyone has a concert story. Let's hear yours". If you have not already, please subscribe to this podcast. Thank you for hearing our stories.
[00:00:00] Charles: Welcome to another episode of Seeing Them Live, a podcast featuring memorable concert stories from live music fans. Everyone has a concert story and hopefully one day we'll hear yours. Today we're going to hear Doug's.
[00:00:27] Doug: So, he's, he's there and he's, he's kind of walking in the stage, kind of towards the back of the stage and you see him slip on whatever this stuff is, in this case eggs on there, and fall flat on his ass.
[00:00:45] Charles: Doug Florzak as a way of introduction, Doug, I didn't quite know where to start. You're, you're kind of multifaceted here. So, I'll start maybe going back a bit. You've published a couple of books. One is called a Successful Independent Consultant and how to turn your career into a successful consulting business.
[00:01:08] You also did a marketing book as well, and you've also published, an album called Flagstone. And actually, Doug's the producer of this podcast and we use some of his music from Flagstone on the intro and the outro. And by day, I guess your Systems Analyst, I think is what it said on your LinkedIn profile.
[00:01:35] But anyway, I'll let you may be clear a few of those things up or if you'd like to add to 'em. So, go ahead, Doug.
[00:01:42] Doug: Yeah, so my day job is I'm a systems analyst in an IT department for a major healthcare company. But my fun job is I am a base player for a local Chicago cover band called Wrought Iron Soul.
[00:01:58] So, in addition to that, I also compose my own music. You mentioned Flagstone, which is an album that came out earlier this year. It's kind of in, you know, it's all instrumentals. It's in the genre of chill music; smooth jazz. It's hard to categorize, but it, it kind of falls into those departments.
[00:02:18] And I'm having fun helping you produce the show. So, I'm looking forward to this interview.
[00:02:23] Charles: Yeah. Yeah. And we'll talk about a few things here, Doug, but I guess what we could start off with is your experience seeing Queen was that 1977 perhaps. I think it was at the Chicago stadium, the old one.
[00:02:44] And yeah, just kind of tell us, I think there was a weather issue, there was all sorts of interesting things going on for that concert. So, go ahead.
[00:02:53] Doug: I would say it was probably a concert where the most unique thing that I've seen happened. Most of the concerts I've gone to have been pretty standard and rudimentary.
[00:03:05] But this was on January 28th, 1977. I went with a couple of friends of mine. We were seniors in high school at the time. Went with my friend Lane and Art. And my friend Lane actually found a website called www.queenlive.ca, that filled in some of my gaps on my memory for what happened.
[00:03:32] But there were some interesting conditions that occurred prior to the concert and then something had happened once the show started. So, in those days we had our driver's licenses, but we didn't have our own cars. So, we ended up borrowing our parents’ cars whenever we needed to go to something like this.
[00:03:53] And our parents were pretty trustworthy with us on driving. My friend Lane looked up the weather on that day and it just so happens that that month in 1977 January was one of the coldest months on record and so it was pretty cold that day when we went to the concert. So, we get there and there's a delay getting inside and at the time I didn't know but later on after consulting this Queen website, it turns out that due to bad weather, the equipment trucks didn't show up on time, and so there was a delay setting up the PA.
[00:04:32] So, they hadn't even done their sound check or anything. And it turns out that Freddie Mercury's pretty particular about those kind of things. He didn't want to let anybody in until they did a sound check. So, at some point according to this article, I guess the manager for, Thin Lizzie, by the way, was, was the warmup act.
[00:04:54] Okay. So, another big band at the time. And I guess their manager convinced them to let everybody in, 'cause apparently, they had to fly in extra equipment and everything because the original trucks with the equipment couldn't make it.
[00:05:08] But they got that all in place. We got in. We got seated. And so, we're sitting in the balcony of the Chicago Stadium, which is the old Chicago Stadium at the time. If you can picture this, we're kind of in the balcony stage left. So, we're on kind of the side of the balcony. Not the greatest seats in the world, but as it turns out, they were good seats to see what, what happened later on.
[00:05:33] So, we're kind of on the side of the stage in the balcony. And so the show starts out and everything's fine. And you know, we're enjoying Freddie Mercury performing. This, by the way, is pretty soon after Bohemian Rhapsody was released, which was kind of the big hit that kind of brought them out into the pop scene.
[00:05:58] And so then I noticed and my friends noticed that they actually would sell seats behind the stage in the Chicago stadium. So, there were seats sold all the way around. So, in the balcony behind the stage, which is probably like the worst seats you can imagine in some ways, unless you like seeing the backs of the heads of the performers.
[00:06:17] They had people sitting up there. So, we're watching and we see these people throwing something out onto the stage. And at the time, I actually thought it was ice. I thought they either took ice from their drinks and threw it out there. And I don't remember if they, you know, sold drinks with ice in them or what, but I didn't know. That's what it looked like to me. Or I thought because somehow, I had this idea that because they were up on the balcony that they could somehow maybe have exited out onto the roof and grab some ice and made some ice balls or something. I have no idea.
[00:06:54] So, we see them throwing things down there and it's right where Brian May is playing. And so, it turns out later after consulting this article that it was actually eggs which is even more fascinating in some ways. It's like how did they get in there with eggs; raw eggs to throw down onto the stage. But anyway, so they threw these items out on the stage and even though we were far away, Brian May, who's pretty easy to play to pick out because he had this big lion's mane of a permed hairdo. And so, he's there and he's kind of walking the stage, kind of towards the back of the stage. And you see him slip on whatever this stuff is in this case, eggs there and fall flat on his ass.
[00:07:40] Charles: Oh my goodness.
[00:07:41] Doug: It's really hard too. And so, he gets up and he angrily is pointing up into the balcony, presumably to indicate to the security to go and remove these people. And it turns out based on this article that he must have really hurt himself, you know, pretty bad. He fell on his tailbone. So, they played for a little while longer, but then Freddie Mercury, once he realized what happened and the rest of the band realized, they stopped the concert and they left the stage.
[00:08:12] So, we're sitting there, the lights came back up, we're like, what happened? You know, are we going to even have the rest of the show? I don't remember how long. I talked to my friends, they seem to remember it being at least 15, 20 minutes.
[00:08:25] Based on this article, it sounds like they were trying to decide what to do. So, they did come back out. And they restarted the concert. Freddie Mercury is quoted as saying, "listen you MFers, we don't have to play for you if we don't want to, but for the other 99 percent of you who want to see the show, we will continue."
[00:08:50] So, with that, he...
[00:08:51] Charles: The show must go on.
[00:08:53] Doug: Yeah, with that, he restarted the show, and we saw the rest of the show. And everything else seemed to be okay. I mean they were justifiably upset because I think when you know, get to the point where you put something on stage that injures a performer, that's not a good thing.
[00:09:07] But, this article that I consulted also pointed out that apparently the same people threw some lime wedges or lemon wedges or something out on the stage when Thin Lizzie was playing. Scott Gorham was the lead guitar player for thin Lizzy and Gorham later made a joke, "I guess there's a guy somewhere in there with a whole salad bar just waiting for us. We may not be getting paid much, but hell, we'll sure eat well." So, he made a nice joke out of it. And of course, I'm sure Freddie Mercury was appalled. But that's the big story about the Queen concert.
[00:09:41] Yeah, when you go to these things every now and then something wild happens.
[00:09:44] Charles: Yeah, that's kind of crazy. Cause I'm just thinking like, okay, like how do you get through security at the front door with a dozen eggs or however many eggs, you know, and then where do you keep them? And then why on earth would you bring them in the first place? And then throw them at the band that you've paid good money to see. So, yeah, that's all...
[00:10:03] Doug: Upset that they got tickets behind the stage. I don't know, but it was, it was pretty funny.
[00:10:08] Charles: Yeah. Yeah. And I think too, Doug in preparation for this, you'd forward me that article, there's a link in there, I believe, to a rock critic.
[00:10:17] Doug: Yeah, Chicago Tribune.
[00:10:18] Charles: Chicago Tribune, Lynn Van Matter, I guess, is her name, M A T R E is part of her last name. I don't know when I was reading that she had talked about some of the antics from the fans and throwing things.
[00:10:35] But I found her review not to be so much about the music, but maybe for her dislike of Freddie Mercury. I don't know. She says it's easy to confuse sophistication with pretension and artifice. And Queen is big on that too. She then closes out by saying, for her money Thin Lizzie, which opened the show could blow Queen away any day in a battle of the bands.
[00:11:05] It kind of reminded me of like, "my dad's stronger than your dad", you know, when you were a kid.
[00:11:10] Doug: First of all, it was kind of an odd matchup. I mean, Thin Lizzy with Queen.
[00:11:15] Charles: Yeah. Yeah.
[00:11:17] Doug: It kind of was a mismatch to begin with, but comparing the two is like comparing apples and oranges. They're completely different.
[00:11:24] And you got to realize at this time, Queen was kind of known, but not really well known. They were kind of breaking out at this point, I think.
[00:11:32] Charles: Mm hmm. Okay.
[00:11:33] Doug: And apparently, she made a lot of comments about his wardrobe. Because, Freddie used to wear these leotard type things with real thin straps and, she seemed kind of like having to grab her smelling salts because he was like letting the straps fall off his shoulders or something.
[00:11:49] And then calling, Freddie Mercury pretentious is kind of, it's kind of hilarious. I mean, it's like, duh, you know, that was his whole act.
[00:11:58] Charles: Right?
[00:11:59] Doug: So, anyway, yeah, that article is pretty interesting in a lot of ways the way, you know, the way she focused on those things.
[00:12:07] Charles: Yeah. Yeah. But, overall, a good show I would imagine, all things considered. I was curious, also on that Queen fan site, it said they opened with A Day at the Races Overture. I was listening to that particular song. And I was wondering if that was actually a recording.
[00:12:25] Do you remember if they actually were on stage playing that? I know how sometimes bands will open up with a recording even of themselves, as a way to enter the stage before they actually start playing. Do you, do you recall that at all?
[00:12:40] Doug: I really don't. I don't remember. I don't seem to remember them just playing a recording. They seem to always want to be live. So, I'm not sure. And these articles you’re referring to, I don't remember if they mentioned anything about that.
[00:12:57] I do remember that they were going to do more encores, but they cut it short and the Queen Live article seemed to indicate that was because Brian May was still in some pain after falling on his ass on the stage. Which I can imagine, if you hit your tailbone, you could have some bad damage, you know, and be in pain. But, other than that, I don't really remember the first song, exactly what they did.
[00:13:22] Charles: Okay. Okay.
[00:13:23] We'll hear more from our guests after a short break.
[00:13:30] Would you like to be a guest on Seeing Them Live? If you have a concert story you'd like to share on this podcast, please visit our website at seeingthemlive.com. Once you're there, click on Become a Guest in the main menu. Then fill out the form and click the Submit button. If you seem like a good fit for the job, Show, we'll contact you via email.
[00:13:56] Everyone has a concert story. Let's hear yours. And now back to the show.
[00:14:04] Well, yeah, let's move on to one of your favorite bands. Or maybe the favorite band. I don't know if they're still up there today, after all these years, the band Heart. Which I think you saw them even before Queen and was it 1974?
[00:14:28] Doug: '76. Yeah.
[00:14:31] Charles: The Auditorium Theater in Chicago, I believe, right?
[00:14:35] Doug: Yeah, the earliest ticket stub, and I tried to keep all of my ticket stubs, although ironically, the Queen one, I don't have, I don't know what happened to that one, but I tried to keep all of my ticket stubs. And I still have almost all of them.
[00:14:50] The earliest one I have is from, I think it was October 25th 1976 at the Auditorium Theater, when I saw Heart. And I believe that might have been the first real rock-style concert that I ever saw. We had pretty good seats actually, because back then Heart, similar to Queen, they were just kind of breaking out. I think Dreamboat Annie had just come out.
[00:15:15] And of course being an adolescent kid, I'm obsessed with a band that has two attractive women as the lead singers. So, anyway, yeah, I went to see Heart, and they had, what was his name? Mason?
[00:15:27] Charles: Dave Mason.
[00:15:27] Doug: Yeah. Dave Mason was the warmup. And one of the nice things about the Auditorium as opposed to the Stadium: one, it's a smaller venue, but it also, it's a venue that was designed for music, whereas the stadium was really designed for sports events. The Stadium is where the Bulls and the Blackhawks hockey team play and the Bulls basketball team.
[00:15:52] But the Auditorium, which is well over 100 years old, was designed for music. So, it's acoustically perfect, really. And so, it's always nice to see a show at the Auditorium. And the design of the Auditorium. It looks very much like an old classic theater where it's got a lot of the nice Baroque style embellishments and everything.
[00:16:20] So, it's always a joy to go see them play there. I would say, yeah, they're still my favorite band in some ways, but actually after that, I kind of got turned on, and probably my current favorite overall band is the Smithereens. And, I've seen them twice.
[00:16:37] Once actually to bring back a memory for you is when I saw them play in Brookfield, that's when I first met you.
[00:16:45] Charles: Yeah, I remember that it was like some outdoor festival or something.
[00:16:49] Doug: With, with the woman who was to become your wife.
[00:16:51] Charles: Yes.
[00:16:52] Doug: That was the first time I met you at a festival in Brookfield and saw the Smithereens there.
[00:16:59] I saw them one other time when they played another festival, it was in the city. I don't remember exactly where, and I remember that particular... We were outside as, you know, that's usually how these festivals go. And it started pouring rain, like one of these flash rain situations. And, I remember my wife at the time, 'cause I guess I kind of had to drag her to it to begin with. And she gave me a look like, "really, I don't want to be here and it's raining."
[00:17:29] And I remember that they had kind of like a canvas shade over the stage, and this thing was just filling up with water. You know how like there's like a trough that forms in there? So, they ended the show because you could tell the sound engineers are like, well, everybody's gonna get electrocuted if we don't stop.
[00:17:49] Charles: Yeah. There's a small swimming pool forming over their heads here. So, yeah.
[00:17:52] Doug: So, they stopped. The rain stopped. And so, if I remember correctly, they had a guy come out with a pole that pushed this trough so that all the water would come out of the forward. It missed the stage. It was, like, kind of, like, out towards the front of the stage. So, drained that all off, and then they continued the show. And, so they came back out and DiNizio apologized. He said, “yeah, but, we didn't want to get, F..ing electrocuted.”
[00:18:20] So, we, we had to stop, you know Pat DiNizio. And so that's, that's another interesting memory that just occurred to me about them. But, overall, I really liked the Smithereens because they came to my attention, came to everybody's attention, basically when they did the music for the movie Say Anything.
[00:18:38] Charles: Okay. Yeah.
[00:18:39] Doug: So, that's where they popped out in the early eighties and I became quite a fan after that.
[00:18:44] Charles: Have you seen them recently? I know the lead singer has passed away. But I heard that Marshall Crenshaw, occasionally will be the lead singer for the band. I don't know how often that happens or if they tour.
[00:19:00] Doug: Yeah, they do actually. Yeah. Pat DiNizio, he passed away a few years ago and I was sorry to hear that, but they did start touring again and they were at Summerfest, which is up in Wisconsin near Milwaukee.
[00:19:16] I really wanted to go, but unfortunately on the day that they were playing, our band had a gig scheduled and I couldn't do it. So, hopefully they'll keep doing that and I'll get to see them again soon if they continue touring like that. But I did hear that they have some guest singers occasionally that that are pretty well known.
[00:19:34] Charles: Yeah. Yeah.
[00:19:35] Doug: I'm excited to hear them do the material.
[00:19:37] Charles: Yeah, maybe there's others. I just heard somebody reference Marshall Crenshaw, but yeah, maybe there's other people who assume that role.
[00:19:45] Yeah, I wanted to circle back just a minute to the Heart concert. And from what I understand you purchased a t-shirt at that show and you still have it. And I was wondering if maybe you could share a few comments with us about the vintage Heart t-shirt that you still have.
[00:20:05] Doug: Yeah, it's probably one of my most prized possessions as far as concert paraphernalia. I think that I probably got this at the first concert of theirs that I went to, which was in 1976 at the Auditorium theater.
[00:20:20] And it's just a black t-shirt. It's got their logo at the time, in sort of like a silver glitter iron-on on top of the t-shirt itself. And I still have it. I hardly ever wore it, so it's in really good condition. It actually still fits, which is kind of a miracle unto itself.
[00:20:43] Charles: Yeah.
[00:20:43] Doug: But yeah, I still have it. I've been trying to find out if it has any value, but I'm really having a hard time finding anything like it on the internet. The closest thing I found was Etsy did sort of a knockoff version of it that looks sort of like the one that was available at that time. But, otherwise I'm not really sure what it's worth. I haven't been able to find any information on it.
[00:21:09] Charles: Yeah. That's interesting. A friend of mine, who was kind of into this stuff, he sold his Iron Maiden shirt from 1982 to some guy in Vietnam somewhere for $800. And it was in good shape.
[00:21:27] It looks like yours is in much better condition. I've seen the shirt you're talking about. I know they key in on things like holes, moth holes and rips and such. And his was in mint condition as well. But, yours looks a lot better than his, from a faded standpoint.
[00:21:43] But yeah, he said that the Iron Maiden shirts were commanding probably the most money, but, I dunno, the Heart stuff maybe wasn't even out there especially from this vintage you're talking another six, seven years earlier than what he was selling. So, yeah, maybe we could find out more information about that down the road.
[00:22:07] Doug: I'm curious now, what it might be worth. Although it'd be hard for me to give it up. I've got a lot of memories tied up with it. And it'd be hard to give it up, but I wouldn't mind finding out what it would be worth.
[00:22:16] Charles: Yeah. Yeah. That would be interesting. One other thing. I know you, aside from this shirt, you said earlier in the interview, you save all your concert stubs. I was wondering what made you do that? Were they always in like an album, or did you just have them displayed some other way, or were they tucked away in a drawer somewhere? I know ultimately now they're in a binder kind of photographic kind of thing. But yeah, go ahead if you want to comment on your ticket collection.
[00:22:46] Doug: Yeah, well, I don't know why I got the idea to save them. I think there's something about, and this is something that, that I miss nowadays because now everything's digital, but there was something about getting a physical ticket with the name of the band, the date on there. Even the way that the usher would rip the ticket would give it some sort of character. And from a fairly early age, I had the idea that I wanted to save these things.
[00:23:16] And originally, I ended up saving them in an envelope that you used to get when you'd go and wait in line and buy tickets at Flip Side, which was a big ticket seller at the time or Ticket Master, or whatever. You got, actually, a little envelope which was shaped or sized perfectly for a pair of tickets. And so, I had one of those envelopes and I just kept jamming all my tickets in there. And it got kind of thick after a while. But yeah, I just stuck it in my drawer.
[00:23:48] And eventually much later in life, I'd say within the last five years or so, I thought to myself, well, there must be something better to store these in. So, I went online and I don't remember where I got it, but they had a number of options for ticket albums, and I found one where it's sized for a ticket on each page. I think you can fit three or four on each page, and you just kind of slide them in under plastic. And, it's a pretty nice way to save your tickets and go back and look at them every now and then and bring up those memories. So, that's the history of my ticket preservation system.
[00:24:28] Charles: I see. Yes, I have mine in a Ziploc bag by decade, I think it is. And yeah, I probably should do something a little more kinder to these little tiny pieces of paper that are, some are like 40 years old now. So...
[00:24:44] But one approach to the end of the interview here, Doug. I'm always curious from a live music fan perspective, musicians' take on a concert. I mean, do you look at it differently? Do you key in on the instrument you play or are you just like everybody else? You go see the band and that's kind of in the background or something?
[00:25:09] Doug: Well, I didn't really touch a guitar until I was 20. So, all those years I was pretty much just going and listening and enjoying the performance as is. After I started playing, and particularly since I took up bass, I do end up keying in on those players, either the guitar player or the bass player.
[00:25:30] And, you do catch little mistakes. Most people wouldn't notice them. But, for instance, speaking of Heart, the last time I saw them was when they took down Meg's Field and they turned that into a park and they had concerts there, I went to see them there. This was, I think, in 2016. And, I caught their bass player making a fairly minor mistake, but I did notice it.
[00:25:56] But on the reverse side, when I play, whenever I know there's a musician in the audience, particularly a bass player, I start getting a lot more nervous because I know they're going to catch every mistake that I make, you know? But the funny thing is, you'll go up and you'll talk to them and, maybe they were talking to somebody or they weren't listening at that particular moment, and they'll say, "I don't know what you're talking about."
[00:26:17] I don't know if they're being polite or they really didn't, but they seem sincere when they say, "I didn't catch that. If you made a mistake there, I didn't see it." Because I feel obligated to go and apologize when I make a mistake, you know? "Oh man, I'm really sorry that I'm having a bad night. You know, I made a couple of mistakes. I'm sure you heard them." And, they look at me sometimes like, "no, I don't know what you're talking about." And then it's like, why did I out myself like that?
[00:26:41] But anyway, these days I will key in on certain musicians. There's also from the viewpoint of you want to know what kind of gear they have, how they're getting the sound they have, how they're getting the tone they have. I mean, even down to trying to figure out what type of strings they're using; what kind of amp they have. All of those types of things are really interesting to me as a musician that the average listener wouldn't really care about.
[00:27:07] Charles: Yeah, that makes sense. I've never asked a musician that question. So, there you have it. Anything else, Doug, that you would like to chat about before we wrap up?
[00:27:18] Doug: No, I think this was a lot of fun. I really enjoyed it. I ended up remembering a lot of things that I didn't remember before, and I'm glad to have been a guest on your show.
[00:27:28] Charles: Yeah. Thanks Doug again. And, when I look at some of my ticket stubs and you start researching things, especially these fan sites, you're like, "oh yeah, I remember that now that that's right. They did this, that, or the other thing." So, yeah, it's something I recommend people do, you know, pull out your old ticket stubs if you have them and, and take a look at them and, and maybe write some of these things down.
[00:27:55] That's a wrap for our show. I want to thank today's guests for sharing their concert stories with us. Make sure to check out our show notes at seeingthemlive.com for links to websites, photos, and other artifacts mentioned in the show. I also want to thank my producer, Doug Florzak. The theme music for the show was composed by Doug and is featured on his album, Flagstone.
[00:28:22] If you have a concert story you'd like to share on our podcast, please visit our website and click on become a guest in the main menu. Then fill out the form and click the submit button. If you seem like a good fit for the show, we'll contact you via email. I guess it's time to head for the exits. We'll see you next time on Seeing Them Live.