After the stage setup was complete, before the band came out, John Kay, the lead singer and slide guitar/harmonica player, walked onto the stage wearing dark sunglasses, black leather pants. and a collarless pullover with a raised replica of Saturn across the chest, and fiddled with something on the stage floor. Since no spotlight came on, no one was quite sure it was Kay, but when a cheer finally went up he acknowledged the crowd with a wave and left the stage.
Two Dan Armstrong Plexi guitars waited suspended from a metal stand. I’d seen several pictures of Keith Richards playing a Dan Armstrong in a paperback about The Stones. The guitars were single pickup deals with bodies made of a clear, heavy, acrylic material. The sound system also impressed me. The bands of the concert I’d seen at the Coliseum a little over a month before had used the house PA (the sound rained down from metal speakers hanging from various rafters), the same as an announcer for a hockey game might. Steppenwolf stacked a wall of speaker cabinets on either side of the stage.
The members of Steppenwolf appeared relaxed and ready to play when they took the stage. The album the band was touring to support was Steppenwolf 7 (Cowpuncher gave me a copy for Christmas), and the opening song of the show, Foggy Mental Breakdown, opened Side Two of that LP. Between songs John Kay talked to the audience, and while he tuned a guitar (the Dan Armstrongs belonged to him) someone yelled out for The Pusher. “We’ll get to that in a minute,” Kay said. The crowd went nuts (I told you the song had power.).
The concert, including encore, lasted about ninety minutes, during which time the band played 11 songs. The lineup was the same as on the 7 album, and the players were very good. I was surprised that Kay played slide and second lead guitar as much as he did. He wore and utilized a device called The Bag that acted like a filter, similar to a wah wah pedal.
The 1971 show was a triumph and I really enjoyed myself. Hook and I have revisited that day in conversation many times since.
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