December 4, 1982
The Bitter End
Greenwich Village, New York City, New York, U.S.A.

I saw Tommy's (and Mike's) Badfinger in the winter of 1982 at the Bitter End in Greenwich Village. I knew about Pete's demise, but didn't know that Joey wouldn't be there. It was a little odd hearing Tommy sing most of the leads, and some strangers singing the others, but I loved it anyway. It was then that I realized what a fabulous drummer Mike was...he didn't just play rhythms, but seemed to play music with the drums...the most professional drummer I had seen up until that point, and I had seen many.

Mitch



This was a fine show. I remember the band included a guy from Chicago (the band) and a guy from Beatlemania - an obvious Paul! This was a new world from the show in '72. The audience was a professional oldies crowd. And I was glad afterwards that Tom was still alive that night. The band was great, and this was a fine show. Although Tom sang, the primary vocalist was the Beatlemania guy [Reed Kailing] who as a professionally trained "Paul" clone was more than a competent Pete Ham. I thought this concept worked well with Badfinger and I considered the show to be more than credible.

I do have tapes of the '82 Bitter End show - far audience tape. We sat to the side of the band; the room is long and thin and the band plays there sitting facing sideways to most of the audience so you are either on one side or the other, or very lucky and got there very early.

Rick Hoffman

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