Embarrassing moments? Ha I’ve had mine! I’ve been in dramatics since high school and my big moment came when I got the lead role in “Bye-Bye Birdie.” I played Conrad Birdie. It was a big deal.
I really got into the part. It really took a long time to learn to wiggle like Elvis, because I wasn’t used to that stuff. I had really long hair and the town I was playing in, I was in the biggest rock-and-roll group in town, called the Chancelors. They backed me up on the show, so it was very authentic. The play was really a gas–we had good direction, it was held in a big auditorium and everyone in town turned out.
Opening night was really something. We had rehearsed this thing for months and months and everything had been the same at every rehearsal. One particular set of scenery was the house of these people that I was staying with, the Macaphee’s. Conrad (me) was supposed to kiss their daughter on the Ed Sullivan Show, if you know how the story goes. The scenery was a two level thing, the floor of the stage was the kitchen and you went up a flight of stairs to the bedroom area. As you got to the top of the stairs to the upper level, they faded out into the wings and stopped. The scenery stopped just three feet past the wings and there was about a seven foot drop to the stage level. We always had a ladder there for anyone who went up to the upper level to practice their lines of dialogue, then when they left to walk to the wings, they just went down the ladder.
All this rehearsal time there was always a ladder there. There was a ladder so you wouldn’t fall into space! Opening night, though, everyone gets a little excited and confused and some props or sets are sometimes forgotten. In one of the scenes I came out with a bathrobe on and my hair all messed up. I was the teen idol you didn’t want to see
The whole scene was funny because I had opened a can of beer, guzzled it down, let it run down my face, let out a big belch and then my line was “wake me up for lunch.” So I climbed up the stairs to get to the upper level of the set, still visible to the audience. For sixty days and sixty nights there had been a ladder there, but opening night there was no ladder and I didn’t know it. I was overreacting a bit, really getting into the part and I took this step and I tumbled down seven feet!
There was crashing in turmoil and chaos and thunder and you could hear the whole stage shake. I broke a couple of sets: and it turned out to be the highlight of the show. It got the biggest laugh the night, because everyone knew what it happened. It kind of hung up the show for a while, because everyone was cracking up. It had to be the funniest thing, because no one was expecting it! There were about 2000 people in the audience and they left for about five minutes. The next time I came out I got a big applause. It was really funny.
It seems I’m always falling! I’ll tell you about the time I fell off stage! I think we (@Paulrevereraiders) were in Ohio and it was a big show, a full house. We were in the process of doing “Big Boy Pete” which is the number where we really “get it on” and swing guitar heads at each other. So I was right at the edge of the stage and the stage was about 5 feet high. So “Big Boy Pete” started and Drake and I proceeded to swing at each other. I was swinging really hard, and just about this time I was really proud of myself that I was getting so close. I was swinging so hard that I spun around and fell off stage, right in the middle of the number! But I never stopped playing, because Paul always told me, “Never stop playing. Keep playing even if you fall down and hurt yourself, just play.
So I fell off the stage: in the whole first two rows made a dash for me, which made me a little frightened. Paul said the look on my face was amazing–my eyes were like super eyeballs they were so huge. I tried to get back on stage and I was still playing. All the girls had reached me by now and they were ripping up my costume: and it was like “Oh! There goes a button, ouch, and an ear!” So I tried to spring back onto the stage from the natural spring I had. I got about halfway–like bent over the stage with my backside to the audience and base underneath me! Then Hoss (the Raiders Roadie) grabbed me by the seat of the pants and lifted me bodily back onto the stage. That was funny. I just dangled there and I looked so stupid and uncoordinated.
I can remember another time when I almost fell, but this time it wasn’t from the stage. We did the Johnny Carson “Tonight Show” which is probably one of the first completely live things we had done. We are playing live and singing live, just like a concert. We did “Big Boy Pete” and “Oop Poop Pa Do.” On “Oop Poop Pa Do” we always get on top of our amplifiers and we stand on top of them. They’re five to six feet high and it’s very hard to get up on them in the first place.
The top of the amplifiers weren’t attached to the speaker boxes and it was very shaky. I got on top of my amp and I played guitar behind my head and all of a sudden my amp started slipping and it felt like I was going to fall! I got really shook up because I thought it was really over for me. I mean, here I am on top of my amplifier on live TV, and I’m going to fall off and it’s really going to look great.
Fortunately I didn’t fall, but instead I had colossal balance that night. The amplifier top begin teetering. I had to bend my legs and teeter totter until the song was over. As soon as the curtains closed the amp top fell and I jumped off. It was very scary. When I saw it on TV I saw myself go through all this teetering and I couldn’t believe I had really done it.
I’d say “Big Boy Pete” has led to a lot of embarrassment for me. I have probably split my pants on “Big Boy Pete” at least 100 times. We used to wear black pants and you could really tell in those. One night I was wearing red checkered underwear, really wild, pop art design. And on “Big Boy Pete” my pants split. At the end of the number I whispered into Paul’s ear, “Paul, my pants split.” He started laughing out loud on the microphone “Ha, ha, Fang’s pants ripped.” Everyone was laughing.
So he took me and put me on top of an amplifier and stood me with my back to the audience and bent me over. He spread my coat apart and left it over my back and took my pants and ripped them open even further! Right in front of the audience! The kids thought it was part of the show, because I was wearing the stupid underwear.
I can remember the second show I ever played with the group. The night before I’d played the first show with them. The show was in Portland, Oregon, which was the big town for the Raiders. It was their town. I was the new guy that everybody hated, because they had liked the other guy. So I had to get into the groove and start making it with the kids and smiling and laughing. We had to play a real long show that night and I was really nervous, but I was smiling the whole time.
I guess all the guys thought I did a good job, because right at the end on “Oop Poop Pa Do” (our last song) they said, “Well, Phil, you did all right.” The guys were patting me on the back. About this time Mark said, “I think it’s appropriate in our hometown to baptize Phil as an official Raider.” Just about this time he takes a jug full of water and pours it over my head. I was soaking wet and it was hilarious. I wasn’t expecting it. Right on stage! So I was an official Raider (with a very red-face).
I just remembered another one. We were playing a college show and it was a full house. When we do college shows we put on a little extra comedy. This night we decided we’d have a birthday party for Smitty. It wasn’t his birthday, but we thought we’d have a party for him just the same. We got a cake and just before the last number the road man came out with it.
We said, “We have a very important occasion tonight, as it’s Smitty’s birthday.” We called him down from his drums. So he came right down in front and we were standing around him. The whole crowd was singing “Happy Birthday” and really believing it. Just then Paul took the cake and just as he was to present it to Smitty, all of us took the cake and shoved it into Smitty’s face! You know a real Soupy Sales trick.
Well, he got the cake in the face, but it didn’t stop there. Pretty soon the whole cast of performers was on stage and we were having a cake fight. For some reason there was more cake showing up. I think someone brought a couple of extra ones backstage. It was really a massacre. There were about thirty people on stage, then part of the audience got some cake and they began throwing it and it was a real chaos! There was cake flying everywhere
Finally we cooled it. People had cake in their eyes and their hair and I could hardly play my bass because I was covered with cake. The whole stage was smeared with icing.
We started to go into our last song, “Oop Poop Pa Do” and it was really a mess. I couldn’t keep my footing. It was like being on ice skates for the first time.
We do this step where we run forward and backward: and as I started running backward I started slipping and I fell right on my backside! And I kept doing this! It was getting a lot of laughs, but it was really hurting me. After we finished the show we got a standing ovation. It was the greatest!
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