STEPHEN STILLS POSES BACKSTAGE WITH SPECTRUM CHANGEOVER CREW EMPLOYEE ROGER BARONE

Stephen Stills poses for a photo with me after the second CSN show in Philly. I'm wearing a Spectrum T-shirt and Stills has a CSN shirt. The shirts tell the story. © PERRY CAMPAGNA 1977

CROSBY, STILLS & NASH: THE SPECTRUM (JUNE 1977)

When I met Stills during his Spectrum arrival, he was carrying clothes and a suit over his shoulder. I asked him if I take a photo with him. As we stood chatting, the flash didn’t fire. “You should have charged the battery, man,” he said, with a smile. I gave him a red Spectrum T-shirt, like the one I am wearing in the photo. I also gave Spectrum shirts to Crosby and Nash.

After the second show, I met up with Stillls again, asking, “Steve, can I finally get this picture with you?”

“Sure, man.” My friend and co-worker Perry Campagnia took the shot. He did a great job under the fluorescent lights and the focus was sharp. I was lucky, although the shadows were heavy under our eyes. Earlier in the day, I had asked Joel Bernstein (the CSN photographer and longtime CSN friend) if I could take a photo holding one of Stills’ guitars. He smiled and said, “I don’t think he’d like that.”

Bernstein was from Cheltenham, a suburb of Philadelphia. He was invited onstage to play acoustic guitar during the Whale Song and a spotlight was on him. The second night, Bernstein was left in the shadows without a spotlight.

Meeting Stills was one of my Spectrum highlights. He was very nice to me. There is another story about Stills from the rehearsal that’s worth reading.

Working on the changeover crew was a very physically demanding job. As a co-wroker, Bob Leone, described in a comment  on a previous blog page, “We were always pulling, pushing or lifting something heavy.”

The arena was either freezing cold or uncomfortably hot, humid and stinky, except a few weeks in May and September. The stench of day-old beer and peanuts hung in the air. Pepsi stains burned into the floor, and the pay was minimal at best, sometimes, below minimum (we were never paid overtime, no matter how many hours in a week we worked.) But, moments like the one pictured above made it all worth it. Once-in-a-lifetime moments with memories lasting just sa long as those lives.

~ by photosfromphilly on September 1, 2009.