This takes me back. Our band leader had lined up the gig of a lifetime. We were to be the opening band for a concert on June 16, 1968 at the Camden County Music Fair. The featured act, Cream. It was the last stop on their spring concert tour. I awoke that morning feeling quite under the weather feeling feverish and tired. My temp clocked in at 101. I definitely was coming down with a flu. But, we were going open for the biggest band on the planet, so there was no way I was going to miss this gig. I kept feeling ill to myself and planned my prep for getting to the gig. We were scheduled to start at 7 pm so the plan was to arrive at 6 pm and set up. My bass amp was a custom made twin 15 with a 100w Bogen tube pa amp for a head. Both of these were heavy as can be (even for 1968), so the tired and achy feeling made it just that more difficult to load my rig in my '64 Chevy Impala. I remember the cabinet just fit into the enormous well in the bottom of the trunk of that car. And just t make things worse, it started raining in the afternoon. I had to pack the car, and load in the pouring rain. I met up with the band at the venue and we all loaded in. I was soaked to the bone by the time we got set up. The venue was a theater in the round that sat about 2,000, and was, of course, sold out. I was too sick to be nervous about the crowd. I was just thinking about getting through the set. I remember that I played every number in our set perfectly save one wrong note. It was all original music wrote by our band leader, Lee Wondo. The band was named "Does It Really Matter", and the other band members are Joe Carolfi on guitar, and Ed Brady on drums. When we were done, we had to clear the stage pronto so the feature act could set up. The stage was very small, and a theater in the round has no back stage to "prestage" the feature act. So, we had to load out in the pouring rain, again I was soaked to the bone. I was feeling so sick, I didn't stay. As soon as I had my gear in the car, I took my sick butt home. I thought I would be able to see the feature act the next time they toured through. This is when things really got bad. Spending the whole day exerting myself in soaked clothes caused the flue to get really bad. I spend the next four days running a 102 fever that spiked to 105. I had to climb into a cold bath when it spiked every 6 hours. After four days it broke and I was totally drained. It took me the better part of a month to get my energy back. It was at this point I decided to go to engineering school, because I wasn't going to make any money playing music, and it might kill me. I think it was July 13 that Cream announced that they were disbanding. We had played a historic concert, their last one. They then discovered they had some concert dates they were contracted to so they put together their November Farewell Tour that covered these as well as a few fresh dates. So, our June appearance lost its historical significance, but it still was a blast.
