This video is really The Holy Grail for me. I've been looking for this recording for many years. This is the very first rock show I ever worked.
I was a huge fan of Raspberries and had seen them live a couple of times at Disneyland in 1972. I was in the Army and was assigned to Frankfurt, Germany on January 1, 1973. A couple of weeks after my arrival, I read on the bulletin board that Raspberries were playing a live show in Frankfurt that evening for the Armed Forces Radio Network.
Well, I had to be at that show but I was working that night. I asked my boss for the night off and told him I needed to be there, didn't know why but needed to be there. He laughed and made a phone call. He then told me to get my butt over to AFN as I was gonna be stage security for the show. Yeah, nice guy!
It was an awesome show, got to hangout with the band a bit and chat...but I really spent the evening mostly scoping out the theater, the audience, the stage. It was a large production studio with cameras, lights, everything to make TV or in this case radio. I had an epiphany that evening.
I had done TV and radio in high school. I produced a TV series that included a lot of live music on the local PBS station. But as I looked at this gig I could see clearly that this is what I wanted to do with my life. This was 1973, there was no music video yet. When I began to produce TV for AFN a couple of years later I did gigs with Lynyrd Skynyrd, Ike & Tina and Buck Owens for broadcast and my boss, the Colonel, took me aside and told me, "Son, television and rock n roll music just don't work together, we wont be doing this anymore.". After that I was videotaping Tulips and windmills in Holland.
After I got home I went back to college and then started my own video production business and have been putting music to video for over thirty years as you can see in my many other videos here.
This is really the night when it all came together for me. Raspberries have always had a special spot in my heart cause they gave me the vision.
That's the story of why this recording is extra special to me. I finally found it last month. It is a remastered soundboard recording of the entire show that night. The video is from home movies the band shot of the trip to Germany. I think Capital Records or Raspberries put this together as a promotional video sometime back.
I hold no rights to this video and music except in my heart. If it pisses someone off that I put it up just let me know. It's a remarkable document of rock n roll history that I wanted to share with the world.
Hey folks, if you dig it, buy some of their stuff!
13 окт 2024
