Из воспоминаний Рона Келли, барабанщика Kindness, которые в течение 1971-72 годов были концертной группой в гастрольном туре Питера Нуна.
Фотка тоже тех времён. Видимо, рекламно-подарочный вариант.
A comedy of errors!
November 4, 2007
This is the story of the time when we appeared at the Shakespeare Theatre in Liverpool. It was at the time we were the backing group for Peter Noone, who as many of you will know, was the lead singer with the group Herman’s Hermits. The band had many hits in the 1960’s such as ‘No Milk Today’, ‘Silhouettes’, ‘There’s a Kind of Hush’ and, of course, his first hit, the number one entitled ’I’m Into Something Good’.
After rehearsals at Peter’s country house in Denham, Buckinghamshire, it was decided that we would open the show with the track ‘I’m Into Something Good’ and we would play the instrumental intro to the song, whilst the compère introduced Peter, who would then walk on to the stage and as soon as he reached the microphone he would then launch into the vocals.
Now - when the theatre had made alterations to the building in order to turn it into a night club, they had designed the dance floor so that it would lower into the basement. The cabaret artistes would then set up on the floor and upon introduction the floor would then return back to its original position (powered by an electric motor) so that artistes would appear from the floor as they started to perform.
We had arranged that as the floor started to move we would launch into the intro and as the stage rose out of the depths, Peter would run down the steps at the side of the stage in order to start the number as soon as the stage had stopped moving. This had worked very well for the first four nights of the gig and it looked really good as Peter had timed it perfectly so that he landed on the stage as it stopped.
However, on the fifth night disaster struck. Keith (our roadie) had set up the gear on the stage and the theatre stage manager had us ready and waiting to go on. We knew exactly when to be ready because the compère Peter Goodwright (the comedian / impressionist) told a certain joke. We knew at the end of the joke the stage would start to move and then Peter Noone would be introduced. As we came up from the depths, he’d run down the steps and the two of us (so to speak) would come together at the same time and the show would begin!!!! Not on this evening!!!!!!!!!
The joke finished, we started to move, the announcement was made and Peter started to come down the steps. As he reached the bottom of the steps, the stage stopped, leaving just our heads showing to the audience. The stage then went back down, so Peter ran back up the steps. The stage crews tried again and set the stage in motion. Off we went, off set Peter and then he shot back again as the stage stopped again!!! Back down we went, and back up again as we tried once more. We went up and down like a yoyo for what seemed like ages, with Peter going in and out of the curtains like a cuckoo in a cuckoo clock until finally the stage crew gave up.
The stage was then winched up slowly by hand, before we all walked out through the curtains together, took a bow, and then started the song to a rather loud chorus of cheers and clapping. It took us all our time to complete the song because all of us including Peter could hardly perform for laughing. I think that was the longest introduction to a song that any of us had ever played, and I think that the songwriter must have pocketed a fortune from P.R.S. for 20 plays of the intro to ‘I’m Into Something Good’.
By the way, the stage worked perfectly when it took us down at the end of the set! Maybe it just didn’t like the song. Luckily - the engineers fixed the problem for the next day’s show, but every time the stage moved after that we always appeared from the depths with a smile and a laugh. Funnily enough, one of Shakespeare’s most famous plays is called ‘A Comedy Of Errors’ and that was the perfect description of the events of that evening.