August 25, 1979 - Eddie & the Otters' farewell show at The Decade with The Hell Band.

For obvious reasons, this was one of the most memorable shows we ever did, at least for me. With Eddie preparing to move to Uniontown, this was our last show. I had a hard time dealing with it - this was the first band I was in that was really successful, and I felt like a large part of my identity was tied to being an Otter. Anyway, we went out with a bang, playing one of our best shows ever.

In honor of the occasion, the Hell Band graciously agreed to open for us (for once). We did all of our "A" material and played two long sets. Several memories stand out:

- As we started our third song, "I Saw Her Standing There", Ramone broke a bass string on his Ripper and had to borrow Dave Rusnak's Rickenbacker for the rest of the night.

- In "I Fought The Law", instead of doing the "six gun" rim shots, I grabbed a vocal mic and yelled, "SIX GUN AAUUGGHH!!!" for my only vocal performance ever with the Otters

- During "Love Me Two Times" in the second set, Kim Honath and Diane Ford jumped on stage and ripped Eddie's jeans off. Fortunately Eddie was wearing underwear for once (very stylish plaid boxers).

- When we took our bows after "We Gotta Get Out Of This Place", the machine head on Jim's bass smacked me in the nose. It hurt like hell but there was no blood and the emotion of the moment kind of helped me block the pain.

- The Decade management wanted to stop the show after our first encore ("Kick Out The Jams") because it was after 2 a.m., so I went out to tell the audience, insiting them to yell for more in the process. They finally agreed to let us do a second encore, "Louie Louie", but half-way through the p.a. was turned off. The audience sang along for the last verse and chorus.

We got a good tape of the show thanks to Jean (as usual) and I ended up using a lot of songs for "Otterbiography".

1st set

1) Little Girl
2) Get Off My Cloud
3) I Saw Her Standing There (inc. false start with broken bass string)
4) I Think We're Alone Now
5) I Fought the Law
6) Brown-Eyed Girl
7) Tossin' & Turnin'
8) I Got a Line on You
9) Peter Gunn Theme
10) Secret Agent Man
11) Angel Baby
12) Riot in Cell Block #9
13) Day Tripper
14) Roll Over Beethoven
15) Slow Down

2nd set

1) The Kids Are Alright
2) Mystery Dance
3) Hound Dog
4) Best Friend's Girl
5) Grand Larceny
6) (I Can't Get No) Satisfaction
7) I Knew the Bride
8) Love Me Two Times (Eddie gets de-pants'd)
9) Feel a Whole Lot Better
10) So You Want to Be a Rock & Roll Star
11) Fire
12) You Really Got Me
13) Gloria
14) Shout
15) We Gotta Get Out of This Place
16) Kick Out the Jams (1st encore)
17) Louie Louie (2nd encore)

Sorry I didn't add any photos to this post. For some reason I don't have any scanned, but I'll get some up eventually.

Audio - yes, Video - no, Photos - yes