C&K Open for... “Austin Texas Sunday Break Music Festival” - 1976 (Part 10)

How’s everybody doing today??? Thanks for tuning in and for all your crazy good wonderful comments. These get long, but I hope they’re as exciting as it is for me. Let the goodtimes roll...

I’ve been asked who have we opened for back in the early days. Well, we did a short tour with Loggins and Messina and they were cool. We opened for Boz Scaggs at the ROXY, just when “Silk Degree” was on the rise and all over the World. He was very cool, a real gentleman. His band was “TOTO”, and they were SMOKING HOT!!! We opened for Janis Ian, Spirit, Joan Armatrading, Bachman Turner Overdrive and others, until our album started climbing the charts. 

Oh yeah, we opened for Cheech & Chong, in Detroit. Steel City, hard core stoners, hard core Cheech & Chongers. The venue was SOLD OUT and smelt like a MARIJUANA ATOM BOMB. Contact high!!! Of course with the way we looked everybody thought we were Cheech & Chong until we started singing. We were being BOO’d...ouch. Cee and I looked at each and turned to the audience and said, “Thank you,” and got off the stage. It was a short set and a humbling moment. Not everything’s gonna be encouraging, although that encouraged us to get out of dodge

One of our most memorable concert, in a positive way, was the “Sunday Break Music Festival,” in Austin, Texas. It was like I always imagined it, you know what I mean...the “Rock Star” treatment. Individual Suites, Limosines, helicopters, personal RV’s, BIG ASS STEAKS. We were living it large. The artist on the bill was America, Gary Wright(Dream Weaver), Carlos Santana, Peter Frampton and Cecilio and Kapono.
Every group had a song on the Top Ten. “Good Night and Good Morning” was climbing the charts and in the Top Ten up there with everybody else.
It was frickin’ exciting!!! Because everyone was on the Top Ten list the promoter was waiting for one of us to hit #1 and that morning Peter Frampton went to the Top. Pretty nerve racking and hopeful at the same time!!!

The day before, we sound checked and the promoter, a rich oil man, threw a dinner with Big Ass Steaks and all the fixings. We were assigned our own RV for a dressing room and a runner to get us anything we wanted. I met Pono Oye from Kauai who was America’s personal assistant and we’ve became good friends till today. 

Day of Concert.
We were informed that there were 67-87,000 raving fans waiting to get in and the traffic to the gig was too crazy. So they sent a helicopter to fly us in to the gig and we couldn’t believe it. It was like Woodstock camp sites along side the fence that got torn down before showtime. Hippies and rockers all raging to get in. It was insane, but truly exciting. 

Well, we opened and got a great response. Gary Wright was after us, then America. The day was building. Santana performed just before Peter Frampton and he did something that I’ve never seen before. He was amazing, but what he did was at the end of his last song, after his solo he put his guitar on the guitar stand and let that last note ring, LOUD and CLEAR. It blew me away!!! Thx Carlos!!! Of course Peter Frampton was greeted with a very enthusiastic cheers and he gave the audience what they came for. Crazy...Crazy Good Fun!!!

Check out the website below for some awesome photos.
Till next TBT KEEP ON KEEPING ON!!! Always Love, Henry