The cake presented to Bob Seger & the Silver Bullet Band upon their return to Ft. Wayne, Ind., 40 years later. (Photo Credit: Allen County Memorial Coliseum).
Sometimes, you inherit problems, but that doesn’t keep a good manager down.
Through networking, relationships, persistence and a well-timed apology, you can overcome any obstacle.
Randy Brown, manager of the Allen County War Memorial Coliseum, Fort Wayne, Ind., had no reason to believe he’d ever be able to book Bob Seger & the Silver Bullet Band after what happened — 40 years ago.
That’s how long he lived with a history not of his making or even related to current events.
THE INCIDENT
Bob Seger & the Silver Bullet Band played the coliseum twice in four months, both sellouts, once in December 1977 and again in March 1978. What a market; what a strong fan base, right? So why would Bob Seger shun the market ever after?
“Apparently, we had a fairly new police chief [in 1978] who decided, by the time the March date came around, that he would vigorously enforce the no-smoking regulations, and he did just that,” Randy told Based on Truth. The manager of the coliseum at the time would have been the late, great Don Myers, who worked for a public building in a very different political era.
At the Seger concert that night, vigorous enforcement resulted in 63 arrests, two of whom were on Seger’s crew. According to the New York Times’ coverage (yes, Ft. Wayne made the New York Times), “The police said that Anthony D. Munt, who travels with Mr. Seger’s road crew, had been charged with disorderly conduct and furnishing alcohol to a minor. They said that the group’s road manager, whose name was not made available, was arrested after excise officers said he furnished alcohol to a 14-year‐old girl and an 18‐year‐old girl. Nine of the 63 arrested were charged with drug violations and the rest with alcohol‐related offenses, the police said.”
“I was just talking to [booking agent] Steve Sybesma, and he said, ‘yeah, I think that was my show,’” Randy said when seen at Pollstar Live in Los Angeles all these decades later.
Legend has it that “someone” came to town and ultimately paid all the citations and bailed the crew people out. Whether it was Punch [Edward “Punch” Andrews, Seger’s longtime manager] or someone else, it was said, “Fort Wayne, we will never be back.”
“For the last 20 years (since becoming manager), I’ve been diligently working with Live Nation to get Bob Seger to play the coliseum. We’d get dates and holds, but never were successful,” Brown said.
THE HAPPY ENDING
In 2015, at the Billboard Touring Awards in New York (Randy believes in attending the industry conferences), Bob Seger was receiving the Legend of Live Award. Halfway through the event, Randy finessed his way to the next table over from the Seger table. (It helps to know people, like maybe Susette Hunter of Birmingham, Ala., for instance.)
He then “spent a little bit of time talking to them about Ft. Wayne. I said I wasn’t at the coliseum 40 years ago, but could you tell me what happened? He explained it all.”
And right then and there, Randy apologized. “We’re in a relationship business. Everything you do is how you treat people,” Randy said.
Seger’s crew was about to book his 2019 “Roll Me Away — The Final Tour.” “With Mr. Seger having two sold out shows in such a short amount of time in Ft. Wayne, wouldn’t it be good to finish off by having one more sold out coliseum experience?” Randy suggested.
“Live Nation was routing the tour and Dave Clark out of Detroit does a lot of work with Mr. Seger, and Dave and I talked about it, too,” Randy said. “Things came to pass. They confirmed the dates.”
THE AFTERMATH
Not only did they sell out the 11,000-seat venue for the Jan. 15, 2019, show very quickly, setting a new house record for gross sales, they cashed in on a boatload of publicity about the return of Bob Seger & the Silver Bullet Band to Fort Wayne.
Randy heard through the grapevine that, when looking at the settlement sheet, Punch was heard to mutter, “A pretty darn good Monday night in Ft. Wayne, Ind.” — Based on a true story as told to Linda Deckard