Fact #140939

Greg Lake (ELP) : We played in Bologna, Italy. It's a story I often tell. It involves the Italian promoter, Francesco Sanavio, who told us we didn't have to bring our own lights, or our own staging. He would supply the lights and the staging. All we had to bring was our back line equipment. When we got there at midday, on the day of the show, there was no stage, no lights, and no sign of Francesco Sanavio. He had disappeared. And we couldn't understand what had happened. We sent, along with the road crew, out into the town to go and look for him.

We figured he would be out in a restaurant somewhere, knowing Francesco as we do, sure enough they found him in a restaurant. What he had done, he had gotten the date wrong. Instead of the 25th, he thought it was the 26th. But the tickets had all been sold for the 25th, the band was there on the 25th, but the stage had been booked for the 26th! So, in a panic, they called up a team of builders, scaffolder builders, and throughout the afternoon, they built the stage.

It came to like 6:00 P.M., 50,000 people, no lights, just the floodlights lights for the stadium lights, so, we had to play. There was just no two ways about it . The band had to go on and play. We played and it went down fantastic! The crowd went mad and it was a great scene.
So, it got to Carl's drum solo, and I left the side of the stage, and Keith left his side of the stage, and Carl is out there playing his drum solo. Francesco comes over to me and puts his arm around me, because the show was going down well and he said, 'Hey, it's fantastic! Look how you're doing!' I said to him, 'Don't touch me!, Don't touch me!' I was so angry that he messed this up, after guaranteeing us, and everything would be all right.

'Don't worry about it,' he said. 'Are you sure, Francesco?'. He puts his arm around me, and he said, 'I know you're mad at me now, but you know what? When you see the surprise that I've got for you you're not going to be mad anymore!'

So I didn't know what he had, I thought maybe he'd got some girls or something, in the restaurant, or whatever he was going to lay on. I don't know. So, Carl does the cue to come back on... I walked back on the stage playing doing 'Rondo', and I get to the center of the stage and boom boom, boom boom, I'm playing away, and all of a sudden, this rocket, (not one of those rockets that you buy in the fireworks shop) but one of those really big rockets. It shot straight between my legs! Right between my legs! It went out and hit the audience.

It went out fifty yards or so, and exploded into the audience! One of these air explosions! And then the entire stage burst into fireworks. And what he had done, during the show, the builders that were still there had erected a scaffold in the back. A wooden scaffolding, of which Francesco had put a fireworks display at the last minute. He was going to let it off at the end of the show. And as he let it off, it fell over, and all the fireworks just shot right through the stage and right into the audience!

And it was unbelieveable!!! I mean there was... It was all over the stage, spinning around! They were big fireworks, you know, the Catherine Wheels spinning and hitting the drum kit, and the carpet was burning. The whole thing was going!

And that was the end of the show! After the show, we wouldn't go out to dinner with him, but we told him straight out his punishment was he would take the whole road crew to dinner. He didn't deserve to sit with the band, but his punishment would be to take the road crew to dinner and that they could have anything they wanted. He took them to this restaurant and they drank the restaurant dry!