The Winterland. San Francisco, California, June 1, 1975


"At the Winterland Ballroom in San Francisco we were opening for KISS again, with the Tubes as 'special guest,' though by the way both we and KISS were treated, you'd think it was a Tubes show with a couple of other bands thrown in for good measure. Things hadn't boded well for us from the start, when on our first night in town our vehicle was broken into and my acoustic guitar and other things were stolen. That was one thing, grumble grumble, but when we got to the gig we found the tension backstage palpable. The infamous concert promoter Bill Graham-who also happened to manage the Tubes-had given his band first priority on everything: stage space, soundcheck, the lot. It was a big fuck-you to the KISS crew, and they were not happy. After our set, one of the in-house stagehands ineptly dropped one of Alex's amps off the side of the stage, damaging a speaker. No one appeared interested in taking responsibility for it, the stage crew just sluffed it off, and after Herns failed to get any joy from Graham himself, Alex's Serbian blood began to boil. He proceeded to follow the man around the venue, yelling at him to man up and pay for the fucking damage. Eventually, Graham turned around and, just to get Alex off his back, said, 'Okay, okay, I'll pay for it!' but of course he never did. What would have cost him a hundred dollars that day set the tone for our relationship forevermore."- Geddy Lee, My Effin' Life