Before I tell you about the Nipigon gig, it's important to describe the circumstances that led up to this event.  At the time, I was playing with two other guys.  We didn't have a group name, so we decided to call our selves Elliot, Wolff and Wright.  I sang and played rhythm guitar, Dave Elliot played lead guitar and Dave Wright played bass guitar.  Dave Elliot was taking guitar lessons from this guy named John Poniatowski.  That may not be the way you would spell his name. but who cares?  He was a goof anyways!  John offered to give us group lessons at a rate of $5.00 per lesson.  In return, we would get to share a time slot  with him at "The Summer in the Parks."  He even provided a drummer for both our bands.  We practiced once a week and got better as the weeks rolled by.  Actually we got better in realizing that we didn't need those stupid lessons, but rather stuck with them in order to play in "Summer in the Parks."  Actually, a few good things came out of that experience.  We got to meet other aspiring musicians who eventually became our friends.  One of them has been a long time friend of mine, Bob Bradizza; another one was Larry Hogard; and of course there was Juice.  These guys were to be John's backup band.
 

Finally the day came when we got to play in the park.  John's band was to go on before our band.  We thought this was cool, since we were better then them anyways.  However, John had a tendency to be long winded in his song introductions and the songs themselves.  By the time we got up to play, we were only allowed to play one song instead of three!  Needless to say, we were pissed off at John and Summer in the Parks!  They got to play five songs and we only got to play one!  Doesn't that suck?

Now here's where Arena Rock comes in to play.  John realizing we got burned, decided to make amends by getting us a gig in the Nipigon Arena.  It was a variety show with all sorts of acts on for the night.  This time we got to play five songs.  To make sure we wouldn't get cut off in our set, we demanded to go on before John's band.  If he got long winded, who cares?  The scene was set.  It was a hot labour day weekend and both our groups were to play last on Sunday night.  Overall, the entertainment sucked, whether it was folk dancing or any type of musical act.  By the time we got on, three quarters of the arena left.  However, we played our asses off.  Oh yeah!  We gave them a show!  We started off our set with Green River, CCR song.  Next we rocked them with a Chuck Berry song called Around and Around.  Then we we ventured into the unknown with a Kingbees song called Burnin' the Town.  We screwed up the middle of that song, but it still sounded flawless, cuz we held it together for the finalee.  The crowd was going nuts!  They finally had entertainment!  It was a rush for us!

The only downer on the evening was John's jealousy.  Not to be outdone, he told us that we had to cut our set short, so that his band could play before everyone left.  Since we were nice guys, we said O.K., we'll only play only one more song, so we ended our set with a Yardbird's song called The Nazz are Blue.  It definitely was a rock n' roll high for all us.  To add to our high, the audience realizing that they could no longer be more entertained, started to file out, leaving poor John and his band to play in front of a few people folding chairs.  Take that John!!!  Serves you right!   Oh yeah!  It was also important to note that we got payed for this gig!  Each of us got a total of $16.00!