Fact #117161

Kenny Craddock (keyboards, Mark-Almond) : We did a three month tour of the States supporting Joe Cocker, and we finished the tour in Hawaii, which was all very nice - except that I had an accident. I must have had one too many to drink at the end of tour party, I went into the wrong hotel, fell down some stairs and dislocated my shoulder. I was taken to hospital and plastered up but I felt fine, nothing broken. When Jon Mark came in, I thought he was coming to check on how I was and if I could continue with the next part of the tour, the Joe Cocker part had finished and this was due to be our own tour of the U.S. college circuit. I cheerily waved my good arm at him and said I'll probably be all right for the rest of the tour, whereupon he held up his left hand to reveal the hand minus one finger! 

Apparently Jon had climbed up a palm tree on Waikiki beach and his wedding ring had caught in a ring of lights near the top of the tree; he fell onto the beach and the people who were with him climbed back up the tree and found the wedding ring with his finger still in it! So we were in Hawaii for a month while Jon underwent this extraordinary treatment whereby they made an opening in his chest and inserted what was left of his finger in order to keep the tissues alive and avoid the dreaded gangrene. So we spent an enjoyable month, Colin and I ended up doing interviews on radio shows all over the island and we did eventually manage to play about a months worth of college dates in the States by changing everything to open guitar tunings - Jon could just about manage that, minus a finger.