We were so bad, a fan accosted us afterwards and told us we were the worst band he’d ever seen, and we’d ruined the night for him and his wife who’d paid £12 for a night out and had seen the dreadful Moody Blues! It all came to a head when we did a show in Stockton during March 1967. We were getting dwindling crowds and decreasing money. When we got back to England, it looked like we had no future. “It was about the only place where there was still a demand for the band. “The first shows we did together were in Belgium,” says Hayward. In fact, when the line-up initially got together, it appeared they had no sort of a future. This was a far cry from the days when Lodge and Hayward joined the band in 1966, teaming up with Thomas, Edge and keyboard player Mike Pinder. I wouldn’t say he cheated, but he was the only sober one at the table!” Who won in the end? It was our manager Jerry Weintraub. We played it all over the world, with all sorts of currencies on the table.
“We had the world’s longest running blackjack game happening on that plane. “I tell you how decadent it was,” laughs drummer Graeme Edge. We even had an organist we’d hired to play all the time on flights. There were bedrooms, a lounge area and a dancefloor. It was really luxurious, a Boeing 707 we’d had converted. “In the early 1970s, we had our own plane, The Starship, to fly around on tour, but the only people allowed to travel on it were ourselves and those who worked for us. “We were always very good at keeping a low profile,” says bassist/vocalist John Lodge.
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