The show was an enormous success as the club was packed and people wanted to hear 2 encores! About 30 minutes after the show people were still in the club and wanting to meet the band. I joined the 4 people I met and got in a long line that snaked to the dressing room. There I met Randy Anderson, Mark Healey, Jerry Shirley and finally Joey Molland. I think that the interesting part of this is Joey was very open and talked to all the people in the room, signed autographs with a stack of press photos and mentioned that George Harrison had telegramed and wished them all best wishes(through Billy Prestons manager!) with the tour.
I came away with a lot of phone numbers from the people I met. We all stayed in touch and met again at the summers Beatlefest convention in Chicago. It was here that we all heard about various Badfinger merchandise at the flea market - much of it was in poor quality! Someone was passing out flyers for another Beatle convention the next weekend in Ann Arbor, Michigan. It said Joey was going to play and so we all decided to go and see him!
Joey played many times in the Illinois area. We 5 fans really loved seeing Joey or Mike and the band play. In the summer we travelled together over weekends to see some festivals and even made up and gave away custom Badfinger T-Shirts to the band and fans. It was a wonderful time! All 5 of us even drove 1 night all the way to the Rykodisc special evening "Live Day After Day" concert at the New Agora theatre to see the band play.
Joey was very gracious and when I had to visit family outside of Minneapolis, MN I gave Randy a call maybe to see his band(The Boogiemen) play one night. He mentioned Joey was having a cookout at his home the next day. He said he would ask if I could stop by-my heart just about jumped! Randy called back and said Joey said sure come by a see us. So my cousin and I stopped and visited for 3 hours and met Joey, Kathie, Randy and a few family friends and also a couple members of Randys band The Boogie Men. Joey was real nice and Kathie showed us a few photo/scrapbooks of the clippings they had. It was such a fast afternoon and we did need to say goodbye to everyone. My cousin had thought maybe Joey had a huge house and was a real rockstar, but his house was like everyone else in the neighborhood. He was a gentleman and his family was kind and interested in what we had to say. Somewhere I have a few photos of Joey grilling food at the cookout?
Still love the music and can't wait for more to come in 1999!
Well I hope that this was clear and interesting to many of you. I look forward to reading other stories from fans soon!
Paul Nyman