'The Roar of L'Amour'

CINDERELLA - The night I brought the screen down on Tom Kiefer's head

In May of 1986, Cinderella opened for Kix at L'Amour.

The debut album didn't come out yet and it was their last show before "breaking".

Kix was the perfect band for them to support.

Kix was hi energy, straight-forward hard rock and Cinderella was in the vein.

It was a perfect pairing and about 2k people were going nuts and you think that would make for a memorable night, right?

It did, but for a different reason.

If you ever played L'Amour, you knew the staff were very fair, but we had an "us against them attitude" if you crossed us.

That night was no different than others.

We knew Cinderella was signed and I knew about the Bonjovi connection and this was their second time at L'Amour (first time they headlined on October 19,1985 - my 23rd birthday) and I saw they would be big.

They were getting over HUGE with the Kix crowd and that became an issue, because ... they did not want to stop playing.

A large part of the story I forgot until Steve Whiteman (Kix) told the story and my buddy Alex (DJ prior to me and one of my backup DJ's) filled in the blanks ... hey my memory is good, but I can't remember it all.

Because L'Amour was open until 4am, the club made a large amount of money off the alcohol served, so the owners wanted them drinking as long as possible.

Most nights that meant a 1:00-1:30am start time for the headliner, so that way the majority of the crowd will be there still at 3am-ish.

I worked closely with the stage manager(s) regarding band times and since i booked openers and conferred on nationals, we can up with standard times of:

Band 1: 11:30 -12:00am

Band 2: 12:20 -1:05am

Headliner: 1:30 - 3:00am

Although times might vary per contract and if we had 2 or 4 acts (depending on night), that was pretty much it.

The stage manager had 20-25 minutes to turn a stage over and be ready for the headliner.

If an opening act went long, it would hurt the headliner as far as start time and that was not fair to the band and the crowd.

So, Cinderella is killing it and the stage manager gives them the 5 minute sign. 

They end a song and break into another and I am in the booth (with Alex) waiting to say, "Let's hear it for F'n Cinderella" and give them the send-off they deserve and at the song end, I grab the mic and get ready to talk and they do another song.

Stage manager comes up to my booth and asks, "what do we do?", I ask if he can make up the 5 minutes and he said it will be tight be sure.

So, they finish another song and Tom Keifer (singer/guitarist) announces "Ok, one more song" and I say, "F THIS" to Alex and lower "the screen". 

The screen was a heavy video screen with a weighted bar on the bottom (so the screen wouldn't sway). 

The stage manager cut the P.A. sound when he saw the screen being lowered, but Tom (hyped up) did not see the screen coming and hit a power chord that he heard through his Marshall stack and does a huge "power chord pose" and ... WHAMMO ... the heavily weighted bar on the bottom of the screen hit him right on the head.

He started getting dizzy (like a cartoon character hit with an anvil) and Alex is laughing hysterically at the sight and situation.

I don't remember it myself, but I was told he crashed backwards into cymbals and the drum kit which added to the sounds of a band coming to a crashing stop.

I have no memory of what I said afterwards, I could be vicious on the mic, but I am sure it was different than the glowing outro I was going to give 10 minutes ago. 

In his re-telling of the story Steve (Kix) said that Keifer blames Kix for over a year. (see video below)

No, it wasn't Kix ... it was me backing up my partner (stage manager).

Again, as any band that ever played there knows, if you give our stage manager a hard time, I had his back.

A friend (of mine) refused to get off stage once and I did the same thing to him.

The staff at L'Amour were a team and it wouldn't have worked if I didn't have the stage managers back.

Oh, for the record, I liked Cinderella. I thought 'Long Cold winter" was amazing (second album) but ...

Chuck Kaye

Ah Yes Indeed

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