July 18, 1982 (Sunday)
Eagles Club
Milwaukee, Wisconsin, U.S.A.
I met up with them again at the Eagles Ballroom when they played there [see July 5, 1982 for previous memories]. I went up to Tom when I had an opportunity, but he was pretty aloof and not very friendly this time. I said, "hello" and told him that we had met at Craig’s. He acknowledged remembering and then I asked him how the gig out in Slinger went (July 17) and he said, "alright", but then he said he had to go. It was a bit disappointing, as his mood was rather dark and quite a contrast to my first encounter. The concert was really good though. I was amazed that hardly anyone was there. The ballroom is a big room and it looked like a poorly attended high school dance. In hindsight, I wish I would have brought a camera to take pictures and I still kick myself for not doing so.
Coincidentally, my band ended up rehearsing in the same building that another revamped Badfinger was rehearsing in 1983. My band was directly under their room and I recall they were playing Back In The USSR. As a joke, my band would then play Back In The USSR. We never crossed paths with them in person there, as they kept pretty much to themselves up on the second floor. There weren’t any other rehearsal rooms up there. Oddly enough, our agency EpiCenter did offer us a contract to go out on tour with Badfinger. John Ertle said upfront, it was a bad deal and when we read over it there was no way any sane band would have taken the offer. The opening band was to provide all the equipment and would not play on some of the dates. It was horrible, and as much as I was dying to be able to go out on tour with the famous Badfinger, there was just no way we could consider this deal. Next thing, I read about a few months later is that Tom hung himself. What a horrible end. I feel very fortunate in that I was actually able to meet Tom and have these memories.
Jaime Muntner (August 14, 2010)
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