Not sure of the year think 1977-78
One of my budides who was a fellow athletic director at another school recruited coaches and some athletes to work a summer concert series in the catskills. for 10 weeks in Fallsburg NY. It was called something like ' summer in the mountains"..
We were security,parking attendants,ticket collectors etc we were working for Pyramid Securitys Could tell a story about every weekend and the bands.. but the Charlie Daniels i will always remember.. it was a friday night and it was sold out.. Many of the people coming were from eastern Pennsylvania which was about 30 miles from the NY state line..
that night the guy in charge decided to put me at the entrance of the parking lot as the cars,vans,pick up trucks and winterbagos arrived at the the gate.. the reason why he took me out of the park and put me in the parking lot was he heard I was a drivers ed teacher..
Well I got there at 5.00 pm even though Charlie wasn't coming on until 8 .But Russo productions who booked Charlie and his group put Foghat an English group to play before Charlies group ..they had a big British flag on stage and started playing around 6.. when some of Charlies back up group thought they were playing before charlies group as a warm up.. anyway an argument with the promoters and charlies warmup band happened .. Since Foghat was an established group and they were also advertised to play they won.. Now you have 2 different types of music one english and one what ever you call the Charlie Daniels sound country rock or what ever..
At around 7 pm in comes 2 huge trailer greyhound buses with Charlie and his group .. some band members got out and the Daniels band was furious that their warmup group wasn't allowed to play..
I am in a parking lot and have no idea there is a major problem.. then a limo pulls up near me.. out comes charlie Daniels.. he was behind the buses.. his manager is telling him about Foghat is playing right now .. Charlie goes off and yells " we ain't playing after a limey group..and gets in his limo and drives off.. now he is gone..no one knows that charlie Daniels is leaving going back to NYC or Pennsylvania.. I get on my 2 way radio and ask for someone to come out in the parking lot to explain there is no concert after foghat gets off the stage..Me and one other person out of maybe 13,000 people realize we have a problem.. finally word gets to the band members and they pack their equipment and leave.. meanwhile foghat is being booed because the crowd is a Charlie daniels crowd.
after foghat finishes playing they announce the Charlie Daniels concert is cancelled . please keep your tickets you will be reimbursed.. now what i always remember was when everyone was leaving the concert grounds and going to their cars and trailers and I was directing everyone out with only 2 entrances and exits no one was upset.. they were all drunk and high but waving me goodbye and singing.. I never heard one person or car curse or bitch Thats what you call loyal fans..I guess they assumed he got sick and had to cancel.. no one knew it was because Foghat was on the stage ..
So I never got to see Charlie Daniels ever play..did see him close up.. but man those fans were real.
I saw that summer Riders of the Purple sage,Grand Praier Ozzy Osborne ,38 special, and carlos santana who sang 3 songs and was so coked up he left he got his ass booed big time.
We made about $10 an hour and had to wear these yellow Pyramid Security t-shirts ..in the back there was a huge circle.. at the 38 Special concert people were throwing bottles at us aiming for the target on our backs.. wow those were the days..
