We all probably regret something we’ve done in our lives. Some of us get over it in time — and some of us carry it like a backpack filled with rocks for 50 years.
It was my second year at West Chester State College and I still had no clue what I wanted to do with my life — as my course load of Shakespeare, Political Science, Philosophy and Astronomy bore out.
Not yet a University, West Chester was primarily a music and physical education school, so I spent most of my free time at WCUR, the campus radio station. Back then there were three slots on the board filled with 45s, and you were required to play at least four from the “current hits” box every half hour. Over and over.
But elsewhere, an entire wall in the small studio was filled with albums that no one ever touched. So one day I asked the program director if I could play them. He not only said yes, he proceeded to name me the Underground Music Director and moved my DJ shift from day to night.
This was great. I was now always alone in the studio and could play music by artists I liked who weren’t Top 40, along with bands recommended by my musical genius friend and fellow Pennridge alumnus Dave Hartl. And if bands or other acts played at the campus on weekends, I would get to take them into the studio for live interviews.
This promised to be a real treat on the night of Oct. 28, 1972, when Cheech and Chong were going to perform in the multipurpose gym at Hollinger Field House. I’m not sure who the opening act was supposed to be, but they apparently canceled at the last minute and the folks in charge had to find backup.
In the meantime, I got permission to interview Cheech and Chong on the air following the show.
The opening act was a good, tight band, but because we were sitting so close to the speakers, they were also really loud. The band’s manager was hounding me, handing out pages of their lyrics and urging me to interview them on my “underground” show that night.
But remember, this was 1972. Almost every other dorm room on campus had a black light, psychedelic posters on the walls, a fan in the window and an occasional towel blocking the crack under the door. And along with The Moody Blues, Steely Dan and National Lampoon albums, Cheech and Chong was what everyone was listening to.
The duo was just as much fun onstage, performing all the “stoned out” bits that had filled our dorm rooms. And after the show, I led them up to the studio, introduced them to the listeners, and learned a valuable lesson. That funny guys who act out bits for a living are not always so funny after 10 p.m., when they’ve just finished another road show at a state college somewhere in the Rust Belt.
Try as I might (and I wasn’t exactly Mike Douglas or Dick Cavett), I couldn’t elicit much from either Cheech or Chong. They seemed bored beyond belief to be sitting there answering questions about their life. And following a desultory half hour or so of trying, I watched them slough out the door.
I imagine this was also about the time that Bruce Springsteen and the rest of the band had finished packing up their gear and were off in search of the New Jersey Turnpike, having completed what’s listed as their first-ever show in Pennsylvania: the opening act to Cheech and Chong.
Regrets, I have a few. But few were born to run longer than this one.
Fifty years after Hilltown native Jeff Scott’s close encounter of the wrong kind, Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band will perform at the Wells Fargo Center on Thursday, March 16.
They will not be opening for Cheech and Chong.
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