October 17, 1974 (Thursday)
The Guildhall
Portsmouth, England, U.K.

Everybody was in the dressing room and Pete was kind of off on the stage just, you know, practicing riffs and just totally into his guitar. He was in, I think, the bathroom in the dressing room and Mike had taken Pete's sneakers and put them on. Pete was looking all around for his sneakers. Based on the interaction I had with him in Croydon, I didn't know how he was going to react, but when he finally found these huge sneakers, and he spotted them on Mike's feet, he just broke out laughing and loved it. I talked with him a couple of different times in Portsmouth and he was incredibly open and just really nice. I remember he saw me drinking a beer. There was a huge case of beer, and I popped one. One of the guys from Man offered me one, and Pete kind of looked at me and said "Those beers are for the band. What are you doing with the beer?" I said, "I am not in the band, but I got a song in my heart." He smiled from ear-to-ear and starting making up this song on the spot singing those lyrics, "There's a song in my heart." I will never forget that.

Yeah, and we were talking, I don't know how it came up. I think I might have brought up the fact that I liked a song on the first album, Magic Christian Music, and I said, "You know that song 'I'm in Love,' that you guys did was incredibly tight, a really, really nice arrangement." It was like he hadn't thought about it for a really long time... he reflected on it, and he kind of agreed. I could tell it was a very good memory for him. I don't know if he was talking to Mike or Tom, but he kind of brought it up and said, "Yeah, that song 'I'm In Love,' that was great!"

I remember Joey in the dressing room with his guitar playing some Stevie Wonder and talking about one of his songs as being built around a Beatles riff. I clearly remember it as 'Better Days' because he started playing it, then Tom talking about fans showing up at their hotels trying to spot a Beatle! Tom briefly spoke of McCartney's involvement with 'Crimson Ship' and how that was a great experience. I feel pretty lucky and sad at the same time.

Chris Makris

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