wearing like a cowboy boot. I think it was red. And suddenly there is Jimi Hendrix. He said “Hey man, how you doin?” I said “Great Jimi, how are you?” Now, he didn’t know who I was. I said, “It’s good to see you. I just fin- ished playing.” He just smiled and walked up, spoke to a couple of other people and went onstage and started playing “Voodoo Chile.” And with 300,000 people, you could have heard a pin drop. It was dead quiet. Then they erupted into this roar. It was incredible. I never saw anything quite like that. A few min- utes later we jumped in the car and left. And that was it for us at the Atlanta Pop Festival I do remember when I was on the acid,


looking at the 300,000 people in the audi- ence and they all became one huge eyeball, like a space ship you see in a movie. Just one big eyeball looking right at me. At first I got scared. Then I realized it was the acid and that it couldn’t be true. So, I snapped right out of it.


What do you consider some of the high points from your time with Rare Earth? One would be the Atlanta Pop Festival. An- other one would be the California Jam in 1974. It was Ontario Motor Speedway, and there was about 200 to 300,000 there, and you couldn’t get in because there were so many people. About a half a mile away was the hotel where all the guys were staying. They would fly the bands in by helicopter, and he would go up and make a big circle around the grounds, and we’d be looking down at all of these people. Then the helicop- ter landed behind the stage. You get out and go do you show, then get in the helicopter and go back. That was a fantastic thing. Another thing we did, we had three days in New York at Madison Square Garden with Sly & the Family Stone. We opened up for Sly. I re- member riding to the venue, and seeing peo- ple going in. It was primarily a black


audience, and they were dressed to the hilt. These guys had lime green suits, and yellow suits and red suits, patent leather shoes and hats that matched. And all the women were dressed in big fluffy dresses, I mean, it was a hot time, man. We got to the Garden and went onstage and the people cheered, they re- ally liked us. We were really kicking it. We came offstage and Sly went on. What hap- pened was, before he came out, Sly got really, really high. So, he came on and they were doing “Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin)” and he was doing it so slow you could barely recognize it. So, he played it for about a minute and then he stops and says, “Have you heard this one?” and he starts into “Hot Time in the Summer.” And the tempo is just totally wrong. And after a while, the audience got upset with that. And all of the sudden, we heard the audience was chanting “Rare Earth! Rare Earth!” But then later in the set he got better and the crowd loved it. On the second night, it was not as bad, but still off. I always wanted to meet Sly, because I really admired him. So, before the show we were all back- stage and I asked my manager to see if it would be okay for me to meet Sly. But he wouldn’t do it. He wouldn’t come out of his


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