Terry & The Pirates Rockpalast - West Coast Legends Vol.5 (2-CD)

The night before they were to leave for Germany their wives and girlfriends made sure to “keep the boys busy” until the wee wee hours to help ensure that they would behave themselves while on tour. No one is talking as to whether this tactic worked or not and maybe that’s a good thing, but the general consensus was if they weren’t traveling, getting a quick bite to eat, doing a sound check or playing a gig, they were trying to get a little shut eye in between.
The poster for this show on Saturday12/4/82 (errors and typos included) advertised it as; terry dolan (Doobie Bros) david hayes (Van Morrison band) nicky hopkins (ex Rolling Stones) john cippolina & greg elmore (ex Quicksilver s) and greg allman (Allman Bros). Did the promoter really not know who was going to be playing that night? It should go without saying that Gregg Allman was not there and has never been a member of Terry & The Pirates either.
“The promoter was extremely excited by our performance and telling us how fantastic we were, and we told him that we weren’t sure because of the audiences’ lack of response to our music. He reassures us that we were great; and tells us how their audiences very rarely give anybody an encore, and how they gave us two”.
Of course border crossings for rock bands are always an ordeal and a lot of fun too…Not! If you want to know about this story you’ll have to ask Terry in person. Next they drove to Bonn Germany for their second gig on December 5th and Terry & The Pirates got six encores that night and John would have played more had the band let him. They finally had to practically drag him off the stage, because they wanted to go back to the hotel and sleep before getting up the next morning to go play their third and final gig in Hamburg Germany the next day.

David Hayes – For the German TV show we were crammed onto a charter flight to Brussels. It was horrible. We were early for the train to Amsterdam so we went to a restaurant for breakfast and were refused service. I guess we were too scary for the owner. Nicky called him a “Fat Belgian Bastard” and we went to the train station and ate rolls.

We did a great gig in Holland and went on to Germany on a roll and after that nailed the TV show. Then we schlepped home. It was exhausting but fun, actually.

Greg Elmore – When I think back on these days I have nothing but fond memories of playing with TERRY & THE PIRATES, our gigs were always fun and full of surprises, and man could we play some kick ass “Rock-N-Roll”. When I listen back to our records I’m amazed and happy at how good they still sound after all this time and how great we played together.

“Terry Dolan is a great songwriter and playing with him, David Hayes, John Cipollina, and Greg Douglass were some of the best times of my life. Not only did we connect well on stage, but we were good friends off stage too.

“No matter what band I was in, be it Quicksilver Messenger Service, Terry & The Pirates, Thunder & Lightning or Problem Child, I always enjoyed playing with John. The first time I went to Europe with John was with Nick Gravenites and that was a lot of fun. So when this opportunity arose to play in Europe with Terry & The Pirates I wasn’t about to pass it up, especially given the chance to work with Nicky Hopkins again.

“I loved playing with Nicky and hadn’t worked with him since our days together in the Quicksilver Messenger Service and this short tour was bound to be an adventure of a lifetime and I wasn’t about to miss out on it for anything. I just wish that Greg Douglass would have been with us”.

“The tour went by in a blink of an eye and seeing how it was 28 years ago and only lasted for 3 days there’s not a lot to remember between the traveling, sleeping, eating and playing 3 gigs in a quick succession. I do remember that we had a ton of fun hanging out and playing some great music together and how much the fans loved every minute of it too, just as much as we did”.