Meeting John Entwistle - June 27th 1987

Meeting John Entwistle - June 27th 1987

There has been a lot of "Entwistle" action in my life recently.

With the apparent rebirth of Van-Pires and some other Entwistle related projects that I am working on my friend has been on my mind a lot.  I thought I'd share an interesting fact along with a funny story about meeting John for the first time.

    

I met John at a NAMM show in Chicago at approximately 2pm on June 27th 1987.

I was attending the music trade show at McCormick Place with my band.  Our studio engineer and good friend, Joe Berger, was there too.   He knew John and had performed with him.  It was Joe who arranged for us to meet Entwistle.  We were outside the convention center when Joe came walking up with John and introduced us all.

   

John was well dressed as you might expect.  After all they called him "Big Johnny Twinkle" because of his unique fashion sense.  He was always put together and wore his clothes like a true Rock-Star.  As Pete Townshend once told me "he was a snappy dresser" which was true.

   

As we were shaking hands and the introductions were taking place a seagull passed overhead.  As fate would have it the bird deposited a small offering on John's shoulder.

Always cool...John glanced at his shoulder and casually pulled a tissue from his pocket to remove the gift from above.  As it turned out the dry tissue did little to remove the bird dropping so Entwistle tried moistening it with his tongue.  Realizing what he had done and without missing a beat he squinted eyes and calmly uttered...Shrimp!

   

We became and remained friends for the rest of his life.  This June 27th will be the 10 year anniversary of his passing.  I still miss my friend everyday. 

When it thunders...think of John Entwistle! - SL