It’s a Miracle I Never Ended Up in Jail Chapter One

About 25 years ago I was working at a radio station in Orlando, Florida. Every Summer, Orlando had a huge festival downtown called Light Up Orlando. Every radio station in town had their own stage set up somewhere downtown, which was completely closed off to traffic. The event would draw over 200 thousand people.

This year we had Foreigner as the act on our stage. Lou Graham had just recently left the band as the singer and I was unfamiliar with the new singer. My job that day was to welcome the crowd, probably around 60 thousand people, throw some t-shirts out and announce that Foreigner would be out soon. Backstage, I ran into my friend Nikki who was singing backup for the band that day. She told me the band was going on the bus to smoke one before the show and invited me along.

On the bus, I was talking to a guy I assumed was a roadie. Just as I stepped off the bus, feeling no pain, my boss came by and informed me that the jock assigned to bring the band on was missing, so I would have to do it. Slightly backed, I went backstage to get instructions from the stage manager. I was told to welcome the crowd, throw some station bling out to crowd, announce the band and hand the wireless mic to the singer. Easy enough, right? I did what I was told , turned to hand the mic to the singer and the guy I was talking to on the bus tried to grab it from me.

Keep in mind that this is going on in front of 60 thousand people plus. I pulled the mic away, looking for the singer. In the meantime this guy is chasing me around the stage trying to grab the wireless mic. I finally figured out this guy must be the new singer. The band was laughing their asses off and I caught a lot of crap for awhile but eventually (instantly) got over it.

Baxter