A Cold Saturday In Hamilton

It was a cold Saturday night in Hamilton ,Ontario, December 1980. We had just driven up from Toronto after two shows at a good place called Larry's Hideaway. This was the last full tour that I did with Johnny as his sound man/road manager and it was the best bunch of shows he had done in along time due to the fact that he was straight most of the time. This was also the first bunch of shows with the new bass player, Big Tony C., who was like a brother to me until, unfortunately, he died of liver cancer in December 95.

These shows were great, but at this one gig in Hamilton we ran into these Canadian Mafia wannabe types who actually did seem to run this little town. They did own the club, NEW YORK NEW YORK (real original huh) but these guys tried to stiff us out of the guarantee that we had a written contract for. I couldn't get through to these guys that they had to pay this amount and they told me that I better take what was offered or get nothing. We were about to say 'fuck it' when I realized that the office, where they kept the door and bar receipts, was open. Well they definitely did have the amount of the guarantee plus about 500 more. They lied about not having the money, so we took the dough that was ours and got out of town fast.

The next, and last, gig of the tour was in Detroit and it went well. Never think that working for a bunch like this wasn't interesting!

Bobby Belfiore (retired soundman)