| The Savvy Stories by Steve Jones (continued) |
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Chapter Ten – The 1980 Texas Jam Scam Rick declared the jam gig to be an all-black wardrobe day, so as Dad checked audio levels on the other side of town, I ironed my black pants at my Quail Hollow apartment. It was extremely surrealistic to imagine that within only a few hours I would be standing on the stage of the Texas Jam / World Music Festival with my band mates. With all the big name acts playing the show, I felt fairly certain that chances were good I would meet at least one or two celebrities before the day was up, or security ran us out. It wasn’t "celebrity fever" by any means. I’d met many celebrities by that time – more during my McDonald's character events than at Savvy gigs. Signing autographs was a big part of my job as Ronald, but Savvy hadn't quite reached that point yet. We were getting close though. Ironically, I’ve had several celebrities ask for MY autograph! Of course I was in a clown costume at the time. (As long as I remembered to sign the clown's name and not my real one, I was okay.) But all thoughts of celebrities were flushed out of my mind as I turned off the iron and began packing my garment bag with the clothes I’d be wearing on stage at the Cotton Bowl within just a few short hours. Suddenly my focus shifted to my job, and what I would need to be doing to get the it done that day. This was new territory for all of us. Ricky had played the gig at Flagpole Hill with Wet Willie, but that paled in comparison to what lay ahead in Dallas that day. A thousand questions fluttered around in my head; how would we do, how would it feel, would a big break come of it all? I resisted thinking about any of that. I had a big show to do and I was going to simply do the best I could. We’d played our hearts out to win that battle of the bands - and won. This was our prize. It was time to collect. Lilly gave me a kiss for good luck as I left the apartment. (I don't recall if she actually even went to the Jam, which is strange because everyone else we knew was going to support us. Everyone except the girl I was living with. Surely she went. I just don't remember. Of course I was more nervous than I'd ever been before, thinking I'd be opening for the likes of the Eagles and Foreigner.) The band met at Savvy’s parking lot where we loaded up into two vehicles. Our sound crew had gone on ahead of us to get our equipment unloaded and into place several hours earlier. All we'd have to do would be walk on stage and play. On the drive over to Dallas we tuned the radio to Q102 and listened to the DJ’s reporting from the Cotton Bowl. This was perhaps the biggest rock and roll concert lineup to ever play in DFW - and we were opening the show! An overproduced commercial, reminiscent of a monster truck rally, announced the lineup. This time -- for the very first time, Savvy was included! It was official. (I didn’t know it at the time but Dad was listening too, and recording every minute of it.)
We didn't run into much traffic along the way, probably because it was still so early in the morning. We parked our vehicles and walked across a parking lot to get to the VIP area of the Cotton Bowl. Each of us had a laminated ALL ACCESS BACKSTAGE PASS on a string around our neck. The barricades went up and the security gates opened. We were inside! As we made our way down the long ramp to the backstage area, excitement grew with every step. The bottom of the ramp opened up onto a small rock and roll city. We paused for a moment and took in the backstage view. The scaffolding for the stage looked at least 10 stories tall. I couldn’t help thinking how fun it would’ve been to build one of those in miniature with my girder building set as a kid! Workers were climbing the structure, looking like high tech monkeys in the trees of tomorrow - checking speaker connections and lighting fixtures. It was a sight to see, but it was time to move on. We needed to find our dressing room and change into our gig clothes. But before we had a chance to go anywhere or do anything, our soundman Marty met us with a somber look on his face. I knew right away that something wasn’t right.
Marty motioned for us to gather around and then told us the news. Since their arrival, they had not been allowed to set up our equipment. All he knew so far was that the stage manager received instructions not to let Savvy set up. Hud (our manager) told us to stay put and he would get to the bottom of it. Someone from the event showed up and led us to a dressing facility where we were told to make ourselves at home until things could be straightened out. Savvy had only been scheduled to do a half hour set at 10:30 am to start the show. Some unknown force was preventing that from happening. We couldn’t imagine Q102 being responsible for blocking our set after all the work they’d put into promoting the battle of the bands. They’d even added us to the radio spots for the Jam. Who else could be responsible? We would soon find out that like a real city, politicians ran this little rock and roll city too. Only in this case they were known as agents, managers and promoters – oh my! While Jerry Hudson was scurrying about trying to find out what was going on, Marty returned with more bad news. Our equipment, which had been sitting in the wings until someone could give an OK to set it up, had been struck from the stage area completely. As the road crew from the band April Wine set up to play, it seemed official Savvy wasn’t going to open the show. Marty was furious. I think being "evicted" from the stage area had hurt his pride. Still no reason had been given for our being scratched from the lineup. It was about half an hour later when Hud showed up with our first real report. The story would evolve over the course of the entire day as blame was tossed back and forth between the Eagles’ manager (Irving Azoff), and the promoter of the event ( Lou Messina). All we knew at that point was that for some unknown reason, Azoff did not want Savvy to play. Messina and our friends from Q102 tried everything they could to work something out so we could perhaps open the second half of the show that afternoon. We continued to wait. Sounds of April Wine playing on stage as they opened the show drifted into our dressing room. My backstage pass allowed me access to go up and watch from the side of the stage. I looked out at the audience and thought about how it should’ve been us playing at that moment. It was still considered early for a lot of people, and the stadium was nowhere near filled to capacity yet, but it wouldn't take long. During a brief pause in between songs, I heard someone calling my name. It was my brother Chris. He was on the other side of the fence, pointing to where my mom was sitting. I couldn’t believe it. My mom at the Texas Jam! Chris asked why we didn’t play and I tried to tell him we might go on after the midday break, but the band started playing again and communication was impossible. We shrugged and waved and he went back to where Mom was sitting and I went back to the dressing room. It was like a funeral home. A parade of various dignitaries from the radio station and representatives from Pace Concerts passed through to say how sorry they were we got ripped off. Each stated their case regarding how they'd stood up for us, but in the end it came down to the Eagles manager being a real jerk about not wanting us to play. It would be weeks before the whole story would be clear, but for the moment, we were being asked to clear out of the dressing room. Members of Cheap Trick were beginning to arrive and we were starting to wear our welcome out. We were allowed to pile our stuff in a closet and go back out to watch part of the show. Ricky and I were walking together when we came up on Sammy Hagar and his very pregnant wife. He stopped and asked which band we were with. we told him who we were. As soon as he heard the name "Savvy", his big toothy smile faded into a sincere look of sympathy. He told us he’d heard we got bumped, adding that Azoff had been desperately trying to bump him too! Sammy was incredibly down to earth, warm, and friendly. He told us he’d try to have us open a show for him sometime down the road. We thanked him and parted ways, commenting under our breath to each other about what a cool guy he was. [Even though Sammy Hagar would go on to replace David Lee Roth as lead singer of Van Halen, on that day of the Jam, Sammy couldn't have been a bigger star in our books.] We made our way back up the massive framework of the stage and watched Foreigner play a few songs from 20 feet away. All of these bands were at the height of their careers. Despite getting bumped, we were still like kids in a candy store getting all we could want and more. Halfway through Foreigner’s set, Ricky and I headed back to find Hud to see if there had been any news about us opening the second half of the show. We were met with more bad news. Azoff flatly threatened to pull the Eagles from the show if another word was said about Savvy playing. It was finished. We were already over it - more or less. In a sense, it had all been too good to be true anyway. In all honesty, part of me felt a secret sigh of relief. If we weren’t allowed to play, we couldn't possibly bomb. But of course none of us thought we would bomb, and of course we all really wanted the chance to play that show.. The other bands on the venue were big name acts with monster hit records. We were a local club band with a song on a radio station’s compilation album, and we’d won a "talent show." Did any of that give us the credentials to open for the Eagles on their "The Long Run" tour? It didn't matter any longer. It was turning into an extremely hot, summer day. Fire hoses were turned on the crowds near the stage to keep them cool. Backstage, in the rock-and-roll city, shade was at a premium. We’d been there since early morning and it was almost time for the mid day break. Our crew had loaded our equipment back into the van and we were not quite sure why we were even still hanging around. Suddenly, security people came out of the woodwork making everyone leave. All access passes no longer mattered. Anyone not associated with the Eagles was forced to leave. The Eagles were coming! The Eagles were coming!
After all the drama we’d suffered that day, forcing us to leave was the ultimate insult. But we'd just had a crash course in being good sports in the face of adversity. As we walked back across the parking lot to our cars, some of us were in better spirits than others. Hud was fuming. At one point, we came up on a group of teenagers who were hanging around outside the gates. Because we were carrying garment bags they assumed we were one of the bands - and they asked if we could pull any strings to get them in. In a last act of defiance, Hud tore the backstage pass from the string around his neck and pitched it to them. "Compliments of Savvy!" he said, without missing a stride. Two or three of the other guys followed suit, discarding their passes as well, but I held on to mine. I wasn’t sure why, but I did. When I got home to my apartment around 2pm, Lilly was gone. I went into my little music room and turned on the radio. The Q102 DJ’s were doing a wrap-up of the first half of the day. While there had been other problems that morning, our story seemed to be catching on as the headline. People who never heard of us were rallying to our defense. There were even groups calling for the destruction of Eagles records because they messed with a little band from Ft. Worth. The backlash went on for days. It was on the evening news. We were in the headlines of the paper. Buddy magazine did an entire article called "Azoff’s Last Stand." Evidently, the editor of Buddy got into a run-in with Azoff at a local nightclub following the Jam. Radio personalities were talking about how extremely professional we were under the circumstances, and our legacy became bigger because of the show we DIDN’T play. Offers began coming in for us to open shows for Ted Nugent, AC/DC and others. When Joe Walsh was interviewed on a local radio station, he said he'd heard about the situation but was adamant about the band not knowing anything about it. It was a management issue. Walsh offered to have Savvy come and open shows for the Eagles in L.A. “sometime.” Azoff made the same offer during subsequent radio interviews; however, he never took our calls.
For a while we didn’t know why we weren’t allowed to play. We could alternately assume that either we weren’t considered good enough -- or perhaps someone worried that having a popular local band on the show might steal someone's thunder. We wanted and needed to know what had gone down. As time went by, and all parties involved were able to discuss the matter, the pieces of the puzzle quickly fell into place. The whole affair resulted from Azoff wanting a much shorter show. He didn't want the Eagles closing an all day show which featured other bands that might be considered as popular as the headliners. He tried to cut Sammy Hagar from the lineup, but Lou Messina from Pace Concerts talked him out of it. So when he was flying into Dallas and heard that a band called Savvy was opening the show, Azoff flipped out. It didn’t matter who we were, how good or bad we were, or that we’d won a contest to open the show. All that mattered was that Azoff had already told Pace Concerts that no more bands could be added. That was it. Nothing personal. For months I dreamed of sawed-off little Irving Azoff standing at the gates of Hell saying, "Welcome to the Music business." Those prophetic words would come back to haunt me again in only a few years. Only next time, it wouldn’t be in a dream. |
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SAVVY STORY INDEX
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