Allen Theatre: Uriah Heep

Uriah Heep was on  Friday July 28, 1972 at the Allen. White Trash (the Apple Records group) were supposed to open. People were calling and asking “is that Edgar Winter’s White Trash?”  “No it’s not.” White Trash were in some sort of barroom brawl in Chicago, and drummer Bobby Ramirez was killed, so they were unable to appear. Damnation, the local group also appeared. For some reason the usual group we used as ushers were unavailable, so we scrounged up some people, That bunch of ushers were the worst, most of them quickly vanished into the crowd once the doors opened. At the end of the night only about 2-3 of the flashlights were  returned. The Allen had no working air conditioning, and it was hotter then hell in there. It was a rowdy night, one of the torchlights on the east mezzanine was smashed by some bozo. Smitty and I tackled some guy who was about to toss one of those big brass poles over the side of the mezzanine.  The show was briefly stopped when a bunch of people climbed into one of the false boxes on the house right side. One of the more amusing incidents was a group of people climbing a vertical ladder alongside the stage that lead to the roof, when the top guy peeked over the top and saw a policeman there, he jumped down a rung causing a chain reaction, along with a few bruised fingers.