The Spectrum Concert experience featuring Ike Richman- inside the world of concert Promotions!

0:07 SPEAKER_02: Hey everybody, welcome to the concert room inside the Philly Concert Experience. I'm your host, Bob Hill. The Concert Room is a podcast session dedicated to the performances, performers, bands, and artists who played on the stage at the legendary Philip Spectrum Arena. The Spectrum held numerous concerts over its 40 plus years of existence, earning the nickname America Showplace. And today we have a special guest who will take us inside the spectrum world of concert public relations and behind the scenes of promotions.

0:38 SPEAKER_02: And I'd like to welcome our guest and friend Ike Richman. Ike is the founder of Ike Richman Communications. His firm specializes in the publicizing of local, regional, national, and international sports, concerts and entertainment events. Ike is a well-respected and experienced media, communications, and PR executive, and he worked for Spectacor, the owner of the Spectrum Arena, handling the promotions and PR events, including concerts. So let's get ready for a fun conversation. Ike, welcome to the concert room.

1:11 SPEAKER_02: I appreciate taking the time and I'm looking forward to this fun discussion and uh all things about the uh Spectrum concerts. Um now I did want to ask as a point of reference, um, how did you become uh employed by Spectacor? A little background.

1:27 SPEAKER_00: I I dreamed as a kid of working at the spectrum. That that was something that I wanted to do. I didn't know how to do it. Um I wanted to be in concerts or I wanted to be in the spectrum as a kid. I I think it when I was about 10 or 11 years old, I used to go to games and events, right? And I would I would connect uh collect the action magazines. I would collect all those and I would clip out all the concert photos and the wrestling photos. I I still have them in a scrapbook in my basement. I I I that's awesome.

2:05 SPEAKER_00: I I like I I would document this stuff. I don't know why, but I was that was just a hobby of mine. And when I went to school, I studied to be in communications uh radio specifically.

2:17 SPEAKER_02: Okay.

2:18 SPEAKER_00: And I got a job at WIP doing sports radio, and WIP was in the Spectacore family at the time, and I had applied for an open position as a PR assistant, if you will, at the spectrum.

2:34 SPEAKER_02: Right.

2:34 SPEAKER_00: And I was lucky enough to get the job.

2:36 SPEAKER_02: That's awesome.

2:37 SPEAKER_00: And yeah, and I I I I just made it a point to take care of everybody that came to the spectrum, whether it was an artist, a member of the media, a family, a guest, a patron, an individual, a couple. I just wanted everybody, and I think everybody that worked there wanted everybody there to have a good time. And I during during my time there I I found a uh spiral notebook or a three-ring a three-ring binder, if you will. And and in the three-ring binder was a calendar of events that was listed monthly, uh January 1970, February 1970.

3:24 SPEAKER_00: And it was every and it was every event in the spectrum. So I started going through it, and we had all the flyer stats and all the sixer stats, but did we have a concert stats?

3:36 SPEAKER_03: Right.

3:36 SPEAKER_00: I don't think so. So I started listing out every artist to play at the spectrum, and I would list them alphabetically, and I would uh attach the opening act, if you will, or support act, and started listing them and and a cross-reference, and I just started maintaining it, and that was I started there in 1992. Okay. And I I I just started compiling from then on, and every time a band would play, I'd just pull out the just recorded in the uh calendar. Just document it, yeah, and then somebody had asked me about like how do we know where all the concerts were?

4:17 SPEAKER_00: And when we were closing the spectrum, I had I had published it online, and and you could still find it online if you Google it. It's uh a list of every spectrum concert that'll pop up. Yeah, remake. And the guy Yeah, once in a while somebody would call and say, uh, you know, I went to a show and and I had the ticket stub, and I wrote on the back of this ticket stub who was the opening act, and you don't have them on your list. So I would add them to the list, and uh we just would do some research and we'd look up a review of the show, and that's how we built this archive, if you will, of a spectrum reference of every concert that's ever been there.

4:59 SPEAKER_02: I have that pinned to um my Facebook group, the uh tribute to all the rock con uh Spectrum Rock Concerts Facebook group. And uh I have that pinned because I still reference it, especially when I'm if I'm putting a picture up or something like that, you know, I'll obviously um credit the uh photographer. But if I want a little bit more information on the you know the date and maybe who opened, yeah. I have that pinned. It's it's really amazing. I still look at it nowadays, and it's just to see who played and you know and when.

5:34 SPEAKER_02: It's really that's amazing. And you put that together along with piecemealed it together with uh with other people, right?

5:42 SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, and I'm glad that you have uh identified where that is, and and I hope people find joy in that and share share that with others and and can reminisce about the spectrum. I remember meeting with Ed Snyder when he was talking about closing the spectrum and tearing it down, and he was really upset, he was really upset about it. He he said that was his baby. Oh, it was and I and I I I said to him, we'll never take away the memories. We can never touch the memories that this building has had for so many people.

6:16 SPEAKER_00: That's right. So if we if we can keep the memories going, and this document is going to help us keep those memories going, uh then we win. And it was it was just we'll remove the bricks and the mortar and the cement, but you can't touch those memories.

6:33 SPEAKER_02: Yeah, absolutely. And it's great to have that that archive there, you know. Um, I'm gonna put a link, by the way, at the end of the show. Um when I put this up, I'll definitely put a link to the remember the spectrum and where that list is because it's it's pretty amazing. Um you know, and not just the biggest you know, uh just like just I don't know, but like uh artists that you would never even think that played there, you know. The they at least passed by at least once, you know. So could yeah, you'd have Philly has a I mean we have just such a great vast uh you know taste even back then.

7:10 SPEAKER_02: We're Prague, funk, metal, right? Um jam bands like the dead, uh Rock, The Stones. I mean, we're just really versatile back then.

7:22 SPEAKER_00: You know, I think the spectrum plays a factor in that because the spectrum was, as Billy Joel once told me, the perfect size. It was the perfect size for an artist like Billy that was not yet ready to play Madison Square Guard in the biggest arena in the country. Right. It was the perfect size, and it was also the perfect size because it was on the way to New York. So bands like Bruce Springsteen could play there comfortably.

7:54 SPEAKER_03: Right.

7:54 SPEAKER_00: Bands like Yes would play there before going into playing these bigger halls. Not that the spectrum was smaller in comparison to Madison Square Garden, but Madison Square Garden was just a massive edifice, and and the spectrum was just a nice compact room that made it fun for a band and fun for an act to really get close with the with their audience and build an audience and develop a show and develop a following. And that's that's part of what you just said. Like artists came through Philadelphia because of what we offered them, but the fans really made that experience special, and bands came back because of that relationship with the fans.

8:39 SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and sometimes two, three night stands.

8:42 SPEAKER_00: You know, they where they weren't and they weren't doing that anywhere else.

8:45 SPEAKER_02: Right. Yeah, and uh well the Stones, which is just amazing to me. I think they did this only a couple times on the 72 tour, but they played it uh nighttime, and then I think on the 21st July they played a matinee and then they played in the evening. You know, it's just uh it is amazing. It was an amazing room. Uh the acoustics were great, so I know you know I can imagine bands you know love the way they sound, whether they were recording off the soundboard and they listened later on, um, and maybe did something with it, you know, like the doors.

9:21 SPEAKER_00: I think what the f what the bands like the most about playing the spectrum, there's there's many characteristics or characterisms of of of the room, but what they liked the most was how close the fans were to the band.

9:36 SPEAKER_03: Right.

9:36 SPEAKER_00: They were right on top of the artist. Aerosmith would say, I love playing the spectrum, the fans are right on top of you. The Grateful Dead loved it, they were right on top of you. And they and Mickey Hart would say, they would tell you if you were on or if you were off. You knew it. And the fans, they the Philly fans were not afraid to tell you how you were doing. And if you were on, they were on. And if they were on, you were on. It was kind of like a a reciprocal relationship, but that was unique to the spectrum.

10:06 SPEAKER_00: We were close. You look at you look at going to Madison Square Garden, and it's kind of similar capacity for concerts, but it's kind of spread out. It's it's a wider room where the spectrum was more of a narrower room, and it didn't go up real high either. It was just tight. And and it was almost like the stage stretched from seating area on the left to the seating area on the right, and the fans were right on top of them.

10:31 SPEAKER_02: Yeah, that's yeah, that's a great point. And it upped their game too, because almost every concert, regardless of who was playing, was uh sold out. So it wasn't like they were playing to you know 14, 13, 14,000 people. I mean, it was it was uh you know standing room only sometimes. So they you know I would imagine bands that came in would really get up for it. Like, oh, we're playing the spectrum, you know, we got to be on top of our game. Um it sold out.

10:59 SPEAKER_00: Not only were they good, they they they loved the spectrum, and and you go back in time, Bob. You go back uh like in the late 70s, early 80s, there were you could count, you could probably name the top arenas in the country. You could get Madison Square Garden, Boston Garden, the LA Forum.

11:16 SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I saw a lot of shows at the LA Forum, yeah.

11:19 SPEAKER_00: And the spectrum was right there with them. I I remember watching uh American Bandstand. There's a clip of this that uh Dick Clark interviewed Deborah Harry from Blondie, and he said, This is a new upcoming rising band. And he asked her, I don't remember the exact question, but it's like, hey, you're on tour, where have you been? And she goes, We just played the spectrum in Philadelphia.

11:41 SPEAKER_03: There you go.

11:41 SPEAKER_00: And you could see how excited she was because that was one of the premier arenas in the country. And if you weren't ready to play Madison Square Garden, you played the spectrum, that was a big deal for an artist at the time. Right. That was a huge deal for some.

11:58 SPEAKER_02: Yeah, even opening up, we we showed up. You know, we we we packed. Uh I saw a lot of shows there, and then I went there just just also to see, you know, the opening act. Yeah, it was amazing. I mean, it was amazing. It was a communal feeling, you know, that that party atmosphere, you know, during the uh in between shows or uh, you know, or uh right before with the music playing and that famous spectrum fog.

12:27 SPEAKER_00: Yeah, there's there's a tremendous there's a tremendous amount of pride that we as employees had there, and we wanted to make sure that everybody there had the best time, whether it was the artist, whether it was the promoter, whether it was the manager, whether it was the fans in the third level down on the floor. It was it was pride to put on a great show. And I think the fans understood that and knew it and wanted to be there. The fans appreciated it, knew it and wanted to be there. And you said it was communal, and it really was.

13:04 SPEAKER_00: There was a special feeling about being in that that that building. We had one, we had one concourse for the fans of for the public, three levels of seating with one concourse. We also had one concourse underneath. So if you had to get to your office or backstage, we're all sharing a hallway. So you you could be passing by an artist and and and run into somebody, and they they knew you had work to do, and they would they would respect it, and we knew they had work to do and we would respect it. But sometimes you you'd get into a conversation with somebody backstage that you just happen to you just happen to run into somebody.

13:40 SPEAKER_00: I mean uh it was it was just it was special. And and the art like Bruce Springsteen, when he would play the spectrum, would always go to the box office before the show, and he would just stick his head in the box office and and say, I just wanted to say thank you.

13:55 SPEAKER_02: Oh no.

13:55 SPEAKER_00: Thanks for all the work you did. Just wanted to make sure you all knew it.

13:59 SPEAKER_02: Oh, that's it.

14:00 SPEAKER_00: And there were bands after the show that would go back uh to the stage hands and just say, Thank you, guys. If it wasn't for you, we wouldn't be up there doing what we do. They they there was it was special.

14:11 SPEAKER_02: Yeah, that's it.

14:13 SPEAKER_00: I'm saying that a lot, but it's it's for the for the listener, it it's hard to get it, but to describe it, but you were there, you know, you can remember everybody remembers being in the spectrum, everybody remembers a show they saw there, and the show is probably better in the spectrum than it would have been anywhere else. Yeah, I agree because it was the spectrum. Because it was the spectrum.

14:35 SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I agree. Uh and I'm uh firsthand, I can tell you I saw Van Halen a few times at the spectrum. When I lived in LA, I went out to see him at the forum. I just didn't I didn't get that same feeling, and I I don't know why. Maybe the forum is built differently. I worked there, I worked on sports TV, so I was there ever almost every night. But the concert was it was still Van Halen, but I just missed that spectrum. Uh being the Van Halen Yeah, it was the Van Halen diehard.

15:10 SPEAKER_00: Being the Van Halen diehard that I am, I can tell you why. It's because everybody and their brother and sister in Los Angeles and Southern California grew up with Van Halen at playing backyard parties in 1972. And they all begged and begged and begged to get tickets and passes, and it was just a headache for the brothers to have to do a show in Los Angeles, and that's why it may have come up that way. But Alex Van Halen, who just came through Philly uh recently, not Philly, uh New Jersey or New York, right, on a book tour, on a book tour, said uh reflecting, he goes, Man, I missed the spectrum.

15:50 SPEAKER_00: He remembered it. He remembered they were there 20 plus times, right? But they remembered it. David Lee Roth was doing an interview about the Brown MNs, and he even shouted out the spectrum.

16:01 SPEAKER_02: Right.

16:01 SPEAKER_00: And and it's they the people they know the building. It's it had that reputation as being a fun building to play. And these bands, these bands would go on the road and play a hundred shows, and they but they would call out the spectrum because they knew it, they knew better than some Coliseum or some civic center. They knew where we were, they knew it, and they loved it.

16:23 SPEAKER_02: Uh that's true. I think Clapton in a book, I forget what the book is called, uh, might have been chronicling the final tour in '68, the cream tour. And they played the Spectrum uh, I think two weeks before the final show in uh England, and he said that in the book that the Spectrum show was the best show out of the whole tour. It and and uh Jack Bruce kind of backed him up too in a separate quote. And Clapton said because the of the crowd, he sounded great, he felt great, and he said I was just on fire that night.

17:03 SPEAKER_02: And uh I think the only regret is is that you know they didn't record it. Um and that would have been one of the great all-time bootlegs, probably, if that was uh, you know, like a soundboard. But uh yeah, he and so this is at the end of the tour, you know, in two weeks, they're uh they're over in England, you know, closing out. Um so I thought that was really interesting, and uh I'm not surprised either. He said, God, I felt great. I think they went up to New York, you know, a couple days later.

17:31 SPEAKER_02: Um, you know, again good shows, but he he specifically called out the spectrum as being the best show on that tour. Um on that cream tour.

17:42 SPEAKER_00: That's it, that's a test that's a testament to the room, but also a testament to the fans, because we do have a great fan base for live music in Philadelphia.

17:52 SPEAKER_02: Yes.

17:52 SPEAKER_00: They it the room helps, but it's about the fans more than anything. The fans made that experience special, and the bands knew that. The bands knew that.

18:01 SPEAKER_02: Right, and we had the best arena. Like we could have had the best fans and not like a great arena, but so everything really kind of came together.

18:09 SPEAKER_00: Uh yeah, it fell into place. It really fell into place, and and you could see that there's there's a couple of videos that were recorded in the spectrum. David Bowie's Modern Love was recorded at the spectrum. Uh, there's uh elements of the Van Halen Panama that was filmed at the spectrum, ACDC's Big Money was filmed at the spectrum. Uh there's a there's a Ronnie James Dio video that was filmed at the spectrum. Yeah, there's I was there that night.

18:38 SPEAKER_02: They they they uh did I think uh NFL Films filmed it for the special at the spectrum in '84. I was there that night. Great.

18:44 SPEAKER_00: There's also uh Dave Matthews Trippin' Billy's was filmed at the spectrum. That you you could see the crowd. That's a you that's us, that's Philly, and you don't see that in other markets. That's that's special, and I I I that's a testament to the fans, and it's again a testament to the building, and that's you can't take away those videos, they'll always be around. They may not be on the outlets that we used to watch them on, right? But they'll always be there, and there'll be those memories to to live on forever about going to the spectrum and the and seeing some amazing, amazing shows.

19:19 SPEAKER_02: Yeah, absolutely. Um, let me uh go back a little bit. So you you're working at the spectrum now, and I understand uh you're working under Larry Rubin, right? He was a mentor, the PR do I think spectrum from 76 up until I believe 80, mid-80s.

19:39 SPEAKER_00: He left in 92. So he was there for a good amount of time, and we we we hit it off, and I try to take everything that he taught me and replicate it and do everything that he set forth. And that's great. I I I tell people, Bob, that when I worked at the spectrum, I again it was a dream come true, but it was also an opportunity for me to rem to remember and honor all of those who came before me. Because if it wasn't for them, they helped everybody help put the spectrum on the map.

20:16 SPEAKER_03: Right.

20:17 SPEAKER_00: So it wasn't one person or five people, it was all of us. And I wanted to remember that and and to honor Larry and all the predecessors that way, it was special. So I wanted to make sure that we were always upholding the spectrum's reputation because of the work that was cut up before I got there and others, and it was up to all of us to keep that legacy going.

20:39 SPEAKER_02: Yeah, that's fantastic. Absolutely. Let me ask you what Yeah, no, go ahead. I'm sorry, go ahead.

20:46 SPEAKER_00: Uh no, go ahead. I it's fine.

20:48 SPEAKER_02: No, I was gonna ask you what was the role of PR promotion? You organized press conferences and publicity of events, right? So how does promotions of the concerts, how did that work back then?

21:01 SPEAKER_00: Obviously, where this is pre-internet and we worked with a series of promoters that would book the concert and they would often announce the show, and they could buy an ad or uh a print ad in the paper back then and print out in the acquirer on a Sunday was pretty pretty popular, a good way to find out about events. But you would also call WMMR and alert them that there's a concert coming or WISP back in the day or WIOQ back in the day, too.

21:31 SPEAKER_02: Yep.

21:32 SPEAKER_00: Um and and let them know. But it was it was and then the hype started when you would get on the radio and announce it.

21:39 SPEAKER_02: Mm-hmm.

21:40 SPEAKER_00: And then the there was just as much hype of waiting in line for the concert tickets and then the show. Definitely but from a public relations standpoint, we would we would either send out a press release for an upcoming concert or we would uh help uh call the newspaper or a television station. Uh the night of the show, our job was to bring in the photographers and let them shoot the first three songs. No flash, by the way.

22:08 SPEAKER_03: Right.

22:09 SPEAKER_00: TV stations would often be able to come in and film a couple numbers. And then there'd be times where you'd have an artist like uh Billy Joel said, Hey, I'd be happy. I'm coming in. I'm going to do six shows. Uh I'll do a press conference if you want. Yes, sure. We'd set up a press conference for Billy and he would talk to media. We did one for Garth Brooks. I did a press conference for uh Bruce Springsteen once. And uh I did one with Garth Brooks, had different artists from time to time. Also, uh one of the jobs that we had was there's like uh magazines called Polestar and Billboard, which are kind of like industry publications.

22:49 SPEAKER_03: Right.

22:50 SPEAKER_00: And what what we would do from time to time, Bob, is we would uh take those, uh we would take photos of some of our executives backstage with one of the artists and get a photo if we could. And we would send the photo to Billboard or Polestar and try to get some publicity for the venue.

23:08 SPEAKER_02: So that's a good idea, right?

23:10 SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, and uh that was that was the time that I would often get to meet an artist. So I would say you'd go to the manager and say, Hey, this is uh Bruce Springsteen's 25th time playing here. Any chance we can get a photo of uh Bruce with a couple people from the building, and they would always say, Yeah, no problem, be here at this time, at this location, take a photo, and done. That's great. And back in the day, you had to go to uh a one-hour photo processing lab and get it printed up and then mail it out regular snail mail and hope the magazine got it in time and they'd print it.

23:45 SPEAKER_00: But that's that's part of it. But I I wanted to you talk about the media. The other this is this is something that's unique about the spectrum. And I I know you had Chuck Darrow on this podcast a while ago. And yeah, Chuck Chuck is I I I might call Chuck Darrow one of the founding fathers of this of this space at the spectrum, but I agree. The spectrum had the spec the spectrum had a press box off the off the main concourse that was really designed to be for hockey and basketball.

24:18 SPEAKER_03: Right.

24:18 SPEAKER_00: It was sent center ice and center court, and it was kind of this secluded box off the concourse, away from the fans, that you had a perfect view of center ice, perfect view of the court. And inside the press box was a stairwell. And the stairwell was designed so that a media member, whether it's a uh print reporter, a TV reporter, radio reporter, could be in the press box watching the Flyers game. And at the end of the game, they had to get down to the dressing room and interview the players or attend a press conference.

24:54 SPEAKER_03: Right.

24:54 SPEAKER_00: And there was a there was a workspace called Lower Press. That's where the media worked. They could file their story, they could have a meal, they could use the washroom, etc. The question comes up what do you do at a concert? You don't need the press box. Yeah. So what we did was we allowed radio stations to sit in there. Okay. Uh we had the reviewers, Ken Tucker from the Inquirer, Tom Moon from the Inquirer, guys, Chuck Darrow, Brady Alexander. They would sit in there and review the show. Well, where did that stairwell go to?

25:28 SPEAKER_00: The stairwell went to that lower press room. Well, who's in lower press at a concert? That's the catering room, that's the dining room where the bands are eating.

25:38 SPEAKER_02: Nice.

25:38 SPEAKER_00: That's that's the green room where the bands are doing some meet and greets or some pre-show events. So what would happen is the bands would drift up to the top of the steps and come into the press box, and they would watch the opening act, or the opening act, vice versa, would watch the headliners. Right. And they're interacting with us. And get a feel for the room. Yeah, they get a feel for the room. And now we're there's you might and Bubba John, uh God bless his soul, uh the late John Stevens, he used to broadcast live for the press box at every show.

26:11 SPEAKER_00: Oh, yeah. And like MMR was there every night. Pierre Robert would be there every night. Michael Thierson would be in there all the time. Right. And bands would come up, and they knew that Pierre was there or John Stevenson was there, or Michael Tearson was there. If they could get in touch with Michael and talk to him a little bit, Michael would maybe play one of their records or say something about the band. So it's a bit they they knew. Yeah, so uh we I remember being up there, and uh uh Brian Adams had come up to come up the steps.

26:44 SPEAKER_00: He was in town, he wanted to see Bruce Springsteen, he was at it, he watched the show with us in the press box. Ron Jovi and Richie Sambora came up once before one of their shows and watched the opening act. I think it was Skid Row, and they came up and hung out for a little bit. But it was you also had uh The Grateful Dead had Dennis McNally, was their their longtime spokesperson publicist.

27:05 SPEAKER_03: Right.

27:06 SPEAKER_00: And Dennis would Dennis would sit with us and hold court. He would hold court at set break. That's awesome. And we would just tell us stories and just tell us oh about this and tell us about this and all this adventure. We just we just would just choke it all up.

27:26 SPEAKER_00: We'd have fun. And Dennis, Dennis is a one of the best guys I've ever met, one of the kindest souls, and he just he has so many stories. And I remember saying to Dennis, uh, called him up and said, Dennis, in October of 1994, the Grateful Dead are gonna play their 50th show at the spectrum. And Dennis said, What do you have in mind? I said, Well, we'd like to lower a banner and do a little ceremony before the show. And Dennis said, Hey, what are you doing next Saturday night? I said, uh, uh, nothing.

28:01 SPEAKER_00: He goes, We're gonna be at Giants Stadium in East Rutherford. Why don't you come up to Giant Stadium? I'll leave you a couple of passes, and find me at set break in the hospitality area, and we'll talk about it then. So I said, Okay, so we drive up to the Meadowlands, we go to the show, set break, we go down, and there's Dennis, and he goes, Hey, you guys made it. What did you want to talk about again? I said, uh, we wanted to talk about the 50th show at the spectrum. We're gonna lower a banner.

28:33 SPEAKER_00: He goes, he goes, What are you guys doing tomorrow night? I said, uh, why? He goes, uh, why don't you come back tomorrow night? We'll talk about a set break. So we we drove home, drove home after the set, drove back the next day, see Dennis uh again. Same thing. Like now I'm second night in a row in the Giants Stadium.

28:51 SPEAKER_02: Hey, you guys are back?

28:52 SPEAKER_00: I'm uh Yeah, you guys are back. What did you want to talk about again? What did you want to talk about? I said, Well, we wanted to do this thing with the Grateful Dead, one of the lower banner. He goes, Hey, tour's going to be over in about a week. Call me when you're when we're back in San Francisco and we'll talk about it then. Oh my god, that's right. I said, Dennis, I said, Dennis, you asked me to come up here to sit with you on Saturday, then you asked me to come up. He goes, You had a great time, didn't you?

29:16 SPEAKER_00: I said, Oh, we'd love to eat. Then we'll talk by phone. He just wanted me to come and hang out and enjoy it. And that was like, it was it was so fun to do that. But we ended up uh talking to the merchandise guy, and they designed a t-shirt that replicated the banner. And the only thing that uh the Grateful Dead insisted for that night was that there could only be one person that would be the host or the MC of the ceremony.

29:50 SPEAKER_02: Okay.

29:50 SPEAKER_00: They insist they insisted you can do anything else you want, but it must be Pierre Robert from WMA.

29:57 SPEAKER_02: Oh, yeah. Well, there you go. That makes sense. And absolutely.

30:00 SPEAKER_00: And Pierre was great. Unfortunately, if you if you know the Grateful Dead or follow the Grateful Dead, they just could never rise to the occasion. And maybe that's because the public put too much hype on an event or or their expectations were high. But on the uh yeah, they were high, by the way. Right. Uh but on the Grateful Dead's 50th show at the spectrum, the excitement was a buzz. The people were everywhere trying to get in, wanting t-shirts. The band came out and played Feel Like a Stranger, which was a nice nod to the spectrum.

30:38 SPEAKER_00: But but then the set list just went down the room just went down from there. Just no bust outs, no specials, no, no fun things. It just kind of just left you hanging a little bit. And and it took all the air out of the out of the room that night, but it was a fun time. And and another grateful dead memory, if I could share this with you, is my office, all of our offices were under the seating area, the spectrum. And it was uh St. Patrick's, it was St. Patrick's Day, 1995. And I I think it was a Friday night, matter of fact.

31:14 SPEAKER_00: And we had told all the staff, if you're not working the show, go home early. It's going to be crowded. You don't want to get stuck in traffic. So about four o'clock, my my office started to shake, rumble, because it was a bit there's a band on stage, so you you felt the you start shaking, start rumbling. That's awesome. So I knew who the band I knew what was going on. So I wandered down the hallway and I went out there, and there was only one other guy. He was uh one of our event staff members, Dan Marsh.

31:46 SPEAKER_00: He and I sat out in there, and the Grateful Dead were on stage doing a sound check. Sound check, right? And they were they were playing Unbroken Chain, which is a song that came out on the Mars Hotel album, but they had never played it live ever. Wow. And and they were rehearsing it, and they they there were moments where they the band would go back and forth and say, We're not ready to play this. And Jerry would say, Are we ever ready? Like, what are we waiting at? Like, we're never we're never ready.

32:18 SPEAKER_00: We could be ready. Like, and they're going back and forth, and Bob Weir's trying to tell them we're not going to do it. And Phil Lesh says, We're going to play this in Philadelphia. Nice. And this this went on for about 45 minutes. This went on for 45 minutes. We don't have we didn't have cell phones and cameras and social media to capture this. I just have the vivid memory of sitting there. And they the show goes on and they play and they don't play on broken chain. They come out the next night, Saturday, they they play it.

32:48 SPEAKER_00: The best show of the of the three nights was Saturday, and they don't play on broken chain again. And but now we're on Sunday night, and the first set they played maybe it's about 40 minutes, and they stop, and there's no way they're taking a break 40 minutes into the first set. There's no way. And they kind of like tinker and they linger and something, right?

33:12 SPEAKER_02: They're like, ugh.

33:13 SPEAKER_00: And they're like, and and all of a sudden they start the opening frame frames of Unbroken Chain. Nice. And the diehards in the crowd start to realize it, and it's sort of like an audio wave, like a response. And the the crowd starts to buzz. Yeah, and then they play a couple more notes, and then it's like, oh, and then it's another couple more notes, and it's like, oh my gosh.

33:39 SPEAKER_02: It's like a wave. We gotta play it now, or we've got to ride this wave.

33:42 SPEAKER_00: And then it's like, wait a minute. They've never played this. And then the crowd, then the crowd goes crazy, and it's so loud in there that you almost can't hear anything until Phil Lesh comes out with the first words of the song Unbroken Chain. And then it's like, boom! The crowd just like lights up the room, and it was like unbelievable. That's a vivid memory that I have of being in that room. That I'll always hold on to that.

34:11 SPEAKER_02: That is a great memory, absolutely.

34:13 SPEAKER_00: I'll always hold on to that. Another memory, if I could share with you, absolutely ready to close the spectrum. And we get to we get Bruce Springsteen to play two shows in April of 2009. Now you remember Bruce did come back and did four more in October, but this was April. We didn't, we didn't know if he was going to close, we didn't know what was going to happen at this point. And it's maybe two days before the concert, Rob Cherry from WIP calls me up and he says, Ike, uh, you probably remember, you noticed Harry Callis, the longtime broadcaster, the Phillies passed away.

34:52 SPEAKER_00: And I said, Yeah, he did. He's and and Rob says, uh, I have a recording of Harry Callis doing an introduction for Bruce Springsteen. And Rob at the Rob, this was uh recorded in 1985. Rob was at WIOQ, and he asked Harry to do some kind of recording for Bruce Springsteen because Bruce and the E Street band were gonna play at uh Veteran Stadium. Oh, okay. So Rob Rob recorded this for uh on air, I guess. And and Rob said, I'm gonna send it to you. And I I I guess I wasn't really thinking at the time.

35:31 SPEAKER_00: I said, Rob, why are you sending it to me? And he said, Well, Bruce is in town, he's playing at the spectrum. I figured maybe you can do something with it. So I said, Okay, send it over. And it's an MP3 file. So I listened to it, and it's uh it's Harry Callis. He says, Uh, the bases are loaded, and here comes this new kid just called up, and his name is Bruce Springsteen, and he's you know got the hair, and he goes, and here's the pitch, it's a deep, it's a long drive, deep in the field. This ball is out here.

36:04 SPEAKER_00: And like, so so I take the recording and I go over to uh I call the guy that I'm dealing with at the show at uh Bruce Springsteen's uh management. And I said, I had this recording, and he and he says to me, Hey, can you do me a favor, type it out, type out what you what you would say, write out something you would say. So basically he's telling me if Bruce is going to use this, right? He needs sort of like a script, if you will. Yeah, right. So I I I go into the office and I type it out and I say, uh, Harry Callis, longtime broadcaster of Philadelphia Phillies, passed away this week.

36:45 SPEAKER_00: Uh recorded a uh introduction of Bruce Springsteen at bat. Uh, you know, like uh great memories, and I and I remember as a kid growing up, like if you listen to the Phillies games on the radio back in the day, Richie Ashmer, what would Richie always say to Harry? Say, hard to believe, Harry, hard to believe.

37:04 SPEAKER_02: Right between his popcorn.

37:06 SPEAKER_00: Right. So I wrote at the end, I I wrote on the script, hard to believe, Harry, hard to believe.

37:11 SPEAKER_02: Oh, that's awesome.

37:12 SPEAKER_00: And and I gave it to them, and uh they acknowledged receipt and said, Okay, we got it. And uh Bruce does his show that night, nothing happens. So he's there in the next night, and I go up to the guy again. I said, Hey, uh, just making sure you got that recording, he goes, We have it, we have it. And I said, Okay. And he doesn't say anything, and then uh we're about 10 minutes out from showtime, and he comes over to me and he goes, Thunder Road. And I go, what? He goes, Thunder Road. I go, what about it?

37:43 SPEAKER_00: He goes, Okay, Thunder Road. And just like this is Thunder Road. It's like, oh, oh, I got it, I got it. So uh we find a set list, like you're not supposed to have these, but I I could tell when it's going to happen. So I go out in the crowd, and and Bruce walks up to the microphone and he says, uh, Harry Callis, longtime Phillies broadcaster, passed away earlier this week. He had been with the club for 39 years or something like that. And and he and he recorded this recording for me, and uh let's play it right now.

38:16 SPEAKER_00: And he plays the recording as is, like direct recording of it. And when it's done, Bruce goes over to the mic and he goes, Hard to believe, Harry. Hard to believe.

38:26 SPEAKER_02: Oh, that's great.

38:27 SPEAKER_00: Uh and it was it was it was one of those moments uh it was it was again. Those yeah, you had to be there, but that's what makes the spectrum special. And you know, there's a lot of Bruce Springsteen history in that building. Uh he opened for Chicago in 1973. Yep. And there's I I you you asked John Takiff. John Taikith was a WMMR at the time and then went on to write for the Daily News. And he he's a I I call him a music historian in Philadelphia. And John will tell you, he think he thinks they were brewing, but some people say they were booing.

39:07 SPEAKER_00: And Bruce did not he did not finish his set that night, and after he got off the stage early, and he was disappointed. He said, I don't think I'm cut for arenas like this. I don't think I'll ever do it. And when it was time to come back to play the spectrum when he when he was ready, they they created something called the Spectrum Theater, which was this the stage was thrust forward to make the capacity less so that we didn't have to have uh Bruce Springsteen pla uh uh scared to play in front of a huge building like this, and we made it easier so that it was more comforting for him.

39:45 SPEAKER_00: And then also there's Bruce Springsteen uh played that uh that dreadful night that John Lennon was uh killed. Yep, yeah, and uh we kept telling people don't say anything, don't say anything to Bruce because it'll it'll it'll take him away. He won't be able to perform. Don't tell him right, let him get through the show, let him get through the show. And then the next night he came out and and dedicated uh Twist and Shout opened with Twist and Shout and dedicated it to uh John Lennon. So there's a lot of there's yeah, yeah, there's a lot of Bruce Springsteen uh in the spectrum.

40:23 SPEAKER_00: There's a lot of spring uh the spectrum in Bruce Springsteen. Right. And there's a there's a lot of there's a lot of bands that that came up through there. I I remember I become good friends with Trey Anastasia from Fish, and Fish played December 15th, 1995, for the first time at the spectrum. And during the set, uh tray tray points out, and he goes, I sat right there for my first concert, Jeff Will Call at the Spectrum. Oh my god Bruce Springsteen and and Stevie Ray uh Steven Van Zant attended uh Elvis at the Spectrum 1976.

41:02 SPEAKER_00: So people people they remember going there. Like they didn't have a the metalance wasn't there then, so where would Bruce go? He'd go to the garden. So we came to Spectrum.

41:13 SPEAKER_02: Yeah, was the Spectrum the only um was it the only arena that did that with the theater to handle not smaller arena, but just make it more intimate because that that's pretty much that.

41:26 SPEAKER_00: I can't answer that because I just don't know what other arenas did, but but I I I think it it may have been a trend that they could have done that and other arenas may have replicated that, but that was always uh known as the Spectrum Theater, right? And then the Spectrum did a showcase theater, if you remember that, where they took the curtain instead of going from um I'll call it from blue line to blue line, they went from hockey net to hockey net and cut off one half, and they did a showcase theater.

41:56 SPEAKER_00: I remember we did Tesla as Tesla was coming off of the um five-man acoustical jam tour.

42:02 SPEAKER_02: Right, okay.

42:02 SPEAKER_00: And they sold they sold out the showcase theater in that configuration.

42:06 SPEAKER_02: Nice.

42:07 SPEAKER_00: Yeah.

42:08 SPEAKER_02: Yeah, they recorded uh that hit that they at the Trocadera. At the Trocadera.

42:14 SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah. But they they toured they toured that album and and played the Spectrum Showcase.

42:19 SPEAKER_02: And I think the doors played the uh theater too. If you look at Picture. They may have. Um I because they're behind the there's a curtain.

42:29 SPEAKER_00: So maybe that was was that the theater or was that the the well I I'll give you uh the the trivia on the doors is if you go get absolutely live and put that on, yeah, and the announcer at the beginning is Larry Maggot telling the crowd, telling the crowd to get back we're not gonna be able to fire marshals, yeah. The fire marshal's not gonna let us have this concert. You guys don't take a seat or move. Is that Larry? Yeah, okay. That's Larry Maggot.

42:56 SPEAKER_02: I always wonder who that was.

42:57 SPEAKER_00: I thought that's that's Larry Maggot. And then uh Neil Young, uh the album he has with the roses on the stage, that's the spectrum. That's that's the spectrum.

43:08 SPEAKER_02: That's one of my favorite pictures. Yeah.

43:10 SPEAKER_00: Yeah. There's just just a lot of uh Van Halen, we talked earlier, recorded some crowd shots for Panama at the Spectrum. They didn't the flyovers were not uh they were in New Haven and Providence, but not at uh but there was I I think one of the reasons we we got lucky back in the 90s. Uh Def Leppard uh recorded Behind the Music or one of those documentaries at the Spectrum. And I I would always say to the bands, and how come you guys don't do this in New York? And they said, Oh gosh, the unions are harder to do stuff with in New York.

43:44 SPEAKER_00: And the unions in Philly understood it and they understood the value, and they kind of would uh make it easier on the bands and just say, Hey, if this is for news purposes, we want to help you. And they would kind of sometimes waive the fees or not. And it wasn't it wasn't. And yeah, and and we ended up getting a lot of MTV shoots. We come to the spectrum a lot and interview bands and just said it made it easier. Not that working at the garden was hard. It was just that the unions had uh rules and processes and procedures.

44:16 SPEAKER_03: Right.

44:16 SPEAKER_00: But at the spectrum, they kind of said we'll waive some of those because we see the value in getting this artist on MTV. So we we were fortunate that we were close enough to New York that MTV would come down or Entertainment Tonight would come down a lot. We we get a lot of publicity that way as well.

44:35 SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I think tr that's awesome. I think uh if I remember Triumph did uh something in the mid-80s too, and I think I was at that show, I think it was 85. So there's something out there on YouTube now where they're backstage, they're coming through the tunnel, they're getting on their limo, dressing rooms. Um yeah, it's like a little snippet. I think it's like a 15-minute snippet of maybe a larger documentary, and somebody snipped it and put it out on YouTube. It's pretty cool. And then you also see them going out on stage and stuff.

45:06 SPEAKER_00: There's a there's a documentary called Bear Naked in America, and it's uh from the Bear Naked Ladies, and it was 1998. It was October. I love that. I love that. It was it was October 3rd, 1998, and I used to have a desk calendar, one of those big calendars on my desk. And when the Wells Fargo Center opened, I would put a I would run a slash through every day of the month, and I would put in red lettering, spectrum events, and black lettering, Wells Fargo Center.

45:38 SPEAKER_00: And it was October 3rd, 1998, and I said, wait a minute, we have a Flyers game and bare naked ladies at the same time. I wonder, I wonder if the bare naked ladies would sing the national anthem of the Flyers game. And the guys, the guys agreed, the guys agreed to do it, and they said, Well, here's what we're gonna do. We're gonna go to the spectrum, we'll walk over, we'll we'll sing the sp the Star Spangled Banner, we'll come back to the Spectrum, do soundcheck, we'll go back and watch the Flyers game, and then we'll come back and do the concert.

46:12 SPEAKER_00: So they documented this. They filmed this documentary backstage talking to Bob Clark at the Flyers game. They did backstage at the spectrum, and it was great. Jason Priestley, the Hollywood actor, by the way, directed that that documentary. Yep. So that a lot of the scenes in that are recorded at the spectrum. And also a really unique song recording at the spectrum was by the band REM. In 1994, they went into the visiting NHL dressing room, had one of those giant showers that just had this reverberation or echo, and they brought a cassette recorder in there.

46:54 SPEAKER_00: Holy crap. And they recorded the song Zither. And they ended up recording Zither is recorded in the shower. Shower. In the shower of the visiting NHL Dressing Room with the Spectrum in 1994. Zither is the name of the song.

47:17 SPEAKER_00: You probably do too, Bob.

47:19 SPEAKER_02: Yeah.

47:20 SPEAKER_00: But this, but the song Comfortably Numb, for those that don't, was inspired by a moment that happened at the Spectrum when the Animals Tour in 1977.

47:29 SPEAKER_03: Right.

47:31 SPEAKER_00: And I'll let people look that up. But I did I did have conversations with Roger when he played Wells Fargo Center, uh, I think it was around 2009 or 10, somewhere around there. We were backstage and we talked about it, and he says, Oh, yeah, the good old spectrum. He he remembers it. He remembered it well.

47:50 SPEAKER_02: Ah, that's what, yeah, and that's um it's funny you mention it because I just watched a video the other night with this, comfortably numb, and in the comments, everybody was saying it's drugs, it's this and that. And I'm I'm thinking, like, well, I don't have I don't have the strength to comment and go through the whole thing.

48:12 SPEAKER_02: That's a great story.

48:14 SPEAKER_00: He was he was over he was over medicated because he wasn't feeling well, and if you remember, Snowy White had to finish the show for him. He could Roger couldn't play. He said my hands felt like two balloons, I couldn't play.

48:26 SPEAKER_02: Yeah, he's looking down, he couldn't play.

48:29 SPEAKER_00: He was he was he I think they gave him something for hepatitis C, which was over, which was all they had at the time, and he just said, I I I I I feel pretty good, but my hands feel like two balloons, I can't play my guitar. That'll get you through the show. That was right, yeah. That's that's that's in the books, and and and I I I I go back to um bands that really wanted to play the spectrum, like the spectrum, and and Pearl Jam was the last concert, but they were not the last band to play the spectrum, by the way.

49:05 SPEAKER_00: That's a trivia question for you. Uh but Pearl Jam, yeah, I'll finish this thought first, but Pearl Jam put all of their efforts into playing a four-night stand at the spectrum to close it in October of 2009. Right. And for fans of the 10 club, they released a box set that says 2009 Philadelphia. I have that with me here, and it's all four nights uh on CD with trading cards and a commemorative box that has the Spectrum logo on it, and it's uh really nice. I'll I'll take a picture of it, Bob, and send it to you, and you can put it up on the podcast if you will.

49:44 SPEAKER_00: Absolutely. Yeah, thank you. Yeah, now Pearl Jam was the last concert they played October 27 and 28 and October 30 and 31, but they were not the last band to play there. The last band to play in the spectrum was in January of 2010. Ed Snyder had a private party with the Hooters for staff and family. No?

50:08 SPEAKER_02: Okay.

50:08 SPEAKER_00: Earth, Wind and Fire.

50:10 SPEAKER_02: Oh, awesome.

50:12 SPEAKER_00: Earth, Wind and Fire was the last band to play in the spectrum.

50:16 SPEAKER_02: And this was a private event for employees like yourself and employees, family members, friends, guests.

50:24 SPEAKER_00: Yes. And it was uh it was Ed's party, it was his farewell to the spectrum. And it was it was great. And also uh we had a video done because Bruce Springsteen was playing a song called Wrecking Ball at the time, right? And he uh he played it to open his performance at the spectrum, and he gave us uh the video of that song, and we ended up using the video at the concert uh that night and used it as a soundtrack uh for our guest that night wow in January of 2010.

50:55 SPEAKER_02: Yeah, ah, that's awesome. Hey, well, I wanted to circle back speaking of closing of the spectrum, uh you obviously handled all the events and uh communications for the performances. You mentioned Pearl Jam. So how did Pearl I was always wondering how did Pearl Jam get that get that four night slot? Uh, because I would have thought it would be somebody more connected to the spectrum, um like Springsteen or Joel or you know what I mean? Uh so I was always wondering how did Pearl Jam get in there?

51:31 SPEAKER_00: They they requested it. That was something they wanted, they they they were huge fans of Dr. J. And they remembered watching games at the spectrum, and it's something they wanted to do. Oh, they had that connection. And they had yeah, and they had already they had also closed Chicago Stadium. They were the last concert at Chicago Stadium before they opened the United Center.

51:55 SPEAKER_02: Oh, okay.

51:56 SPEAKER_00: And they wanted to be known as the band that closed the spectrum.

52:01 SPEAKER_02: Wow.

52:01 SPEAKER_00: And they they they did it and they did it on Halloween, right, and they put every effort into it, but they also came to us and said, We'd be happy to put a video to run a video, if you want to put it together, of your tribute to the spectrum. They did, and we put together a special video and they aired it, and we also brought out the night before we closed, uh, we brought um uh we brought Bernie Perant and Dave Schultz backstage to say hello to the band. Oh, that's awesome. And we took Spectrum chairs and stitched them up and said Pearl Jam Final Show.

52:43 SPEAKER_00: And if you if you look on YouTube or or Google it, yeah, in Pearl Jam studios, they have those seats are in some of their videos. You'll see them.

52:52 SPEAKER_02: That's cool.

52:53 SPEAKER_00: But they we did we we closed the spectrum, we closed it down. Well, we really yeah, they were all it was and and and they were all the last show. It wasn't just Pearl Jam, but Bruce had six shows, The Dead had two shows, Neil Young played a show there, Green Day played a show there, Maxwell played a show there. There were a lot of bands, and then we had that we had the Hooters come in and play one last show. There were a lot of bands that it was a celebration, it was it was really great. Yeah, and it was I I had a fun, funny memory.

53:23 SPEAKER_00: I wish I remembered the guy's name, and and if he's listening, I I'm sorry, I don't remember, but I do remember you, not your name. But before Pearl Jam came in, it was uh we did it on October 26th. I think it was a Sunday morning. It was called The Last Stroll. Yeah, and you could walk around the spectrum and take pictures and do whatever you want. And the stage was down because we were gonna we're gonna move Pearl Jam in the next day, and nobody was on stage, nobody was on there. And then I look over, there's this guy standing there with an acoustic guitar, and he's just playing.

53:58 SPEAKER_00: Oh my god, he's just playing on the stage. I was like, I walk up, I walk over and I I said, and he goes, Can I said, I'll wait for you to finish your song. Go ahead, finish. So he finishes the song, and I said, Uh, what are you doing? He said, There's many people, Bruce Springsteen, Billy Joel, Rolling Stones, the Who, Bon Jovi, the Doors, that could say they played the spectrum. And now I can too.

54:22 SPEAKER_02: You can too.

54:23 SPEAKER_00: And I said, Keep living the dream, brother. Keep going. Don't stop. Like, like, I'm not going to stop it, brother. Just keep going.

54:30 SPEAKER_02: That's awesome.

54:31 SPEAKER_00: And and also, we one of the uh I don't think you'll ever see this happen again, but we we closed down the spectrum with uh if you can carry it, you can keep it.

54:42 SPEAKER_02: Right.

54:42 SPEAKER_00: I don't know if you remember that event.

54:44 SPEAKER_02: I remember that event.

54:44 SPEAKER_00: Yeah, people coming out of chairs and uh oh that was the birth of the wrecking ball.

54:50 SPEAKER_02: Yeah.

54:51 SPEAKER_00: We decided we decided to uh just have a free-for-all, put put stuff out on the floor and let people take it. People lined up, and the first couple people came in and they would walk down the ramp and they'd go on the floor, and they went right to the back and they took two chairs and they'd leave. Well, on the floor were a couple of desk chairs, rolling desk chairs, and there was a big slab of the spectrum court. Well, one guy took the chairs and ripped the handles off the chairs, ripped the back off the chair, uh, and then he put the court on top of the seat of the chair on wheels.

55:28 SPEAKER_00: So basically became a dolly.

55:30 SPEAKER_02: Right. He dolly.

55:32 SPEAKER_00: And he stacked them up. He must have had 20 chairs and walked right out of the arena. Oh my god. It was he got a standing ovation. That was like that, that was genius.

55:42 SPEAKER_02: He's got a little mini court like out back of his house or something like that. Oh, yeah.

55:46 SPEAKER_00: Oh, inside in his basement. Or he's got a spectrum feeder in his basement with all those badges.

55:52 SPEAKER_02: Oh my god. That's cool. I would have loved to have like a sign, just maybe that went over like the turnstiles outside or something.

56:02 SPEAKER_00: Um something maybe in the top.

56:06 SPEAKER_02: I know the tunnel was painted, so you can't take that.

56:10 SPEAKER_00: I have the sign that says box office. Uh, but uh somebody had asked me for the press box sign and I gave it to him.

56:18 SPEAKER_03: Oh, nice.

56:19 SPEAKER_00: And uh I he asked, I w I got it. I was I was gonna keep it, but I said you ask for it, you keep it. So uh I'll keep I'll keep his name confidential just in case he doesn't want to be identified. But he's got that. I I have one of the uh signs that was out front of the aisles that you could come across, like you could find your sections. I have a couple of chairs. Yep. I also have in the in the press box, the press box was two levels, Bob. So we had a lower on and an upper level, right? But you needed a sort of like a step to get up to the second level.

56:52 SPEAKER_00: I used to sit on the step. That was my spot in the press box.

56:56 SPEAKER_02: Oh, awesome.

56:56 SPEAKER_00: So I would sit there, so I I took the step. I had that in my basement. Good for you. And there was also a there was also a swing gate that would separate like at the top of the steps to get in and out of the press box. You could you could lock that so people wouldn't go down. That gate's in my basement. I have that too. I saved a couple of those. I uh I don't know what I'm gonna do with them. They're in here. I don't know if I don't know if they'll ever see the light of day, but they're in my basement.

57:25 SPEAKER_00: Happy to say I own them.

57:26 SPEAKER_02: Great to look at. Do you have any paper memorabilia? Like backstage? Do you did you keep any of those?

57:34 SPEAKER_00: I oh my gosh. Uh Bob, I saved every backstage pass from every show I ever. Wow. Good for you. And I never and I never peeled, I never peeled the sticky part off the back. What I would do is I had a um like a uh a plastic sleeve. Yeah, just put them in there on it. I slipped them in there, nice, and then I I have them in a in a photo album. Like uh like uh you could slide your photos into those pouches, if you will.

58:02 SPEAKER_03: Right.

58:02 SPEAKER_00: I have a book of every backstage past I ever uh ever got.

58:06 SPEAKER_02: I is awesome.

58:07 SPEAKER_00: I have every one of them, and that and they're in mid-condition because they never came out, they never got the back peeled off of them.

58:14 SPEAKER_03: Yep.

58:15 SPEAKER_00: I have Grateful Dead, Pearl Jam, Pink Floyd, Billy Joel, Rod Stewart, Motley Crue.

58:22 SPEAKER_02: You know, some of them are like works of art, especially the Deads. The Dead's um artwork on just their backstage passes, the posters. I mean, it's like it's like modern day art. But I always thought it was really creative how they always came up with you know the backstage passes. They weren't just like little things that just you know you filled in, you know, like Richmond, the date, you know, all access. Oh yeah, they always they always had some kind of like cool art design and you know the the band logo with this and that.

58:54 SPEAKER_02: Um I have a few too, but uh I stuck them on like I don't know, drum cases and cassette cases back in the day. And I think I only have like one or two.

59:04 SPEAKER_00: You know, all mine are uh and I I and I used a couple of mine when we were closing the spectrum. Uh I I had gone to Ed Snyder, and we talked about Ed at the earlier part of this podcast, and I said, Ed, I I want to do three things. I want to do three things. And he said, What's that? I said, I want to I want a a book, I want to create a commemorative book, I want a documentary, and I want a website that people will be able to remember the spectacle.

59:36 SPEAKER_03: Right.

59:36 SPEAKER_00: And and he said he said there's no money in the budget for any of this, so you figure it out. So uh yeah, you're a promotion PR guy, you figure it out. So I went to Pat McLoon at the Philadelphia Daily News, and I said, Pat, I'd love to do a book about the spectrum. I don't know how to do it. You guys know, you're you're the best, you know how to do this.

1:00:03 SPEAKER_03: Right.

1:00:04 SPEAKER_00: Why don't you you and your writers write it, we'll review it, you and your photographers use your stuff. You have open access to our archives, let's do it together. And they took they took the risk on it, and we split the proceeds 50-50. And it was called God Bless the Spectrum. And it it was really great. It was really great. We had a lot of fun with it. Ed Snyder agreed to do a book signing at Barnes and Noble on Walnut Street. I couldn't believe we had a hundred people lined up to get a book autographed by Ed Snyder.

1:00:35 SPEAKER_00: That was amazing. And and I I did a lot of research for the book. I looked up how many times, like I checked every wrestling result. We used to do a lot of pro wrestling. I I know this is concerts, and I won't get too far on this, but I remember every spectrum and and Bob Backlin wrestled at the spectrum more than anybody else. So I I listed out who wrestled the most at the spectrum, and I found who do you think was the number one entertainer, performed there more than anybody else in the history of the building?

1:01:05 SPEAKER_00: What? Gunther Gable Williams. Uh no, Gunther Gable Williams with the circus. Oh he was he was he was the MC, right? Was he the MC? No, no, he was not the ringmaster. Gunther was the lion, the tiger trainer.

1:01:17 SPEAKER_02: Oh, right.

1:01:18 SPEAKER_00: Yeah, legendary animal trainer.

1:01:20 SPEAKER_02: Wow.

1:01:20 SPEAKER_00: So so we did a thing about him, and and we we did an article about him. His son tracked me down, called me up and said, Thanks for remembering my dad the way you did, and then everything to us. We sent him a copy of the book. And uh Brad Now is a uh videographer, journalist, editor, extraordinaire. He was working at Comcast Sportsnet at the time, and he started interviewing different people about the spectrum. He got a hold of Christian Leitner and talked to Christian about that shot.

1:01:51 SPEAKER_02: Yes.

1:01:51 SPEAKER_00: And he talked that he got a hold of Wayne Gretzky and he talked about what it is like to play in the spectrum. And he came to me and he said, uh, I need some entertainers. And I I knew Trey Anastasia, so I asked Trey a fish if he would do some stuff. And we interviewed Trey and got some great, great sound bites of Trey. And then he asked me if I could get anybody else, and I I was fortunate that uh we were able to get Mickey Hart to do it, and Brad and I sat down and interviewed Mickey Hart at the Grateful Bed.

1:02:19 SPEAKER_02: Wow, that's awesome!

1:02:20 SPEAKER_00: And and and then we were fortunate enough to interview Billy Joel. And we we interviewed, and uh it was Billy. Billy is one of the greatest guys that you'll ever meet or work with. He was absolutely my favorite, favorite, favorite guy to work with. He's just he'll do everything and anything. And so we we ask, we ask his man, we ask his management team, hey, could we interview Billy? And they they say, hey, Billy's Billy's playing with Elton John at Citizens Bank Park on so and so night. Why don't you guys come down and we'll do it then?

1:02:57 SPEAKER_00: Okay, what time should we get there? Come on, four o'clock. Okay, we get there at four o'clock. Billy's on stage rehearsing. Billy gets off stage, and I said to the manager, what time? He says, Okay, don't worry about it. We'll come back and check on us a little bit. Okay, it's now 6:30. Hey, what time is uh Billy gonna do this? You know, the photographer's sitting here, like, what else are we doing? He says, Uh I'll come back and check on you a little bit. It's now seven.

1:03:25 SPEAKER_02: Does he know the guy in the Grateful Dead, by the way? It's like the same thing.

1:03:29 SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah. It's now 7:30. It's now 7:30. And uh the photographer goes, I don't think it's gonna happen. I don't know why. He goes, Can you hear that? I go, what? He goes, listen, they're on stage. Billy Joel and Elton John are on stage right now. So I said, if you don't know the Billy Joel, Elton John show, Billy comes, they play uh two Elton John songs, two Billy Joel songs, and then Elton plays for an hour and a half. And then Billy gets up and plays for an hour and a half.

1:03:59 SPEAKER_02: Oh, okay.

1:03:59 SPEAKER_00: So about 8 15, we're sitting there, and all of a sudden the door opens up and Billy walks in and he goes, Hey, you guys ready?

1:04:06 SPEAKER_02: Oh my gosh.

1:04:08 SPEAKER_00: They're like, okay. And and and we sat down and we just said, Billy, what was it about the spectrum? He says it was the perfect size, like a package of cream cheese. He said it was just that's awesome. That was yeah, but he but he said it was it was special, and he he recorded um there's a song from uh uh Songs in the Attic was recorded, one of the songs there's recorded at the spectrum. But he he loved it and he gave us some buttons. So uh long story short, we got the book with Pat McClinn and the Daily News.

1:04:39 SPEAKER_00: We now got the documentary with Brad now and Comcast Sportsnet, and we ended up getting rememberthespectrum.com. We did that internally, and we we had a lot of fun with it. And we we sold the chairs as you remember, we sold uh coasters, they were coasters with water inside, and the water was actually water from the we melted the ice.

1:04:59 SPEAKER_02: Yes, we took the ice from the spectrum. Awesome.

1:05:02 SPEAKER_00: Yeah, we we used those as coasters. We took the plexiglass that was the glass that was used in the hockey games, cut that up and had uh flyers autographs uh etched into that and sold those.

1:05:14 SPEAKER_02: Oh, that's cool.

1:05:15 SPEAKER_00: And we just because we knew how special the building was, we knew what it meant to people, and everyone wanted something to go home with, they wanted something to be a part of that forever.

1:05:26 SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I mean uh that's one of the reasons why I I started the uh Facebook group back in 2010. I think I told you this before, but when I joined Facebook, there were some spectrum sites, uh, but it was all-encompassing the spectrum, the wrestling, the fillies, or the flyers, the sixers, etc. Um, and a little smattering of concerts. And I thought, you know, I'm just gonna start a group that's dedicated just to the concerts at the spectrum because I was always into music and I saw my first show there in uh 80, Van Halen.

1:06:00 SPEAKER_00: Uh I I would like to say, yes, I I'd love people to share their thoughts in the in the comments if they can or share them with us. And maybe we'll we'll reconvene this. Uh there's so many more things we could talk about. Uh I I think like let's do it again in a couple weeks or a couple months, just see where we go and and yeah, I would love to have some more stories. There's there's a lot. Yeah, thanks for the opportunity. Well, thank you. And I'll I'll share, I'll share some of my passes uh photos, and I'll and hopefully more people share stuff, and then and I I'd love to connect with more uh fans.

1:06:35 SPEAKER_02: Yeah, let's all stay in touch. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, I appreciate it.

1:06:38 SPEAKER_00: All right, well, be good, and thanks for having me on. I appreciate it. It was an honor.

1:06:42 SPEAKER_02: Okay, thank you, Ike. And thanks to Ike Richmond for joining me today. It's interesting to go inside behind the scenes of concerts and all of the logistics of putting on a great show. I hope you enjoyed it and thanks for tuning in. Please subscribe and feel free to leave a comment, including any topic you would like me to put a session together. I'll put all the links in the show notes, including Ike's communication firm, the link to the list of all the concerts held at the Spectrum alphabetically that is referenced in our podcast, and the one that Ike put together, and also our Spectrum Concert Tribute group in Facebook.

1:07:23 SPEAKER_02: Thanks again and stay tuned for more great guests and music in the concert room.