Why Chicago didn't play in Great Britain for 12 years?

Phone interview with Jimmy Pankow
 

-(question is asked why Chicago didn't play in Great Britain for 12 years)

I mean, we had waited 12 years to be asked back there, since Terry Kath — rest in peace [laughs] — went “Fuck you England!!” on the top of the London Hilton.

-[Laughing] I didn't know that!

Oh, man! Yeah, well, Terry Kath was very unhappy. He was not a happy camper, because Jimmy Page and Ten Years After and Eric Clapton, and all these English — The Yardbirds — all these English guitar players — and Hendrix — were getting all this acclaim. And Terry Kath was a truck driver in Gary Glitter clothes that was, you know, “Who the fuck is this peasant from the United States?” He was getting completely blown off and put down, and he was one of the most incredible guitar players of his time. So we had a press conference in England. And Terry Kath waited for the whole band to pose with every medium in Europe and Asia on the roof of that Hilton, and when 400 photographers got ready to shoot the picture, he gave the finger to the whole bunch of them and went, “Fuck you England, you motherfuckin’ teabag faggot motherfuckers!!” And that was the last time we worked in the United Kingdom. [Laughs]

-[Also laughing] Okay. Oh, dear. I didn't know that story.

And it took all those years til the early ‘90s to be invited back, because most of those people had either died or retired, and the new blood in the business went, “Hey man, Chicago, man, they’re still workin’, man, they’re really happenin’ in the States! Let’s ask them back here, they haven’t been here for years.” We went over there and we took Ron Nevison, our producer at the time, with us. I saw him with his head in his hands and... where was that?

© Debbie Kruger - 27 April 1999, Los Angeles

www.debbiekruger.com