Emergency At The Old Waldorf 1979

The English music press back in 1978/9 did not support the idea of the current crop of punk/ new wave bands touring in the States stating they were bored with the USA and bands that were considering going would be selling out. I asked some of our fans what their opinion was on this and asked if they thought we should go and the resounding answer was an absolute yes telling us to jump at the chance and that they would too, given the opportunity. We had an agent in the US Ian Copeland who ran the FBI agency New York who had also put on other acts of the time for example, XTC, the Police /Ultravox etc. Ian Copeland had a great idea rent a small van and go and play lots of venues in places people would never normally play as well as all the big cities. You're talking about a time when there was very little middle ground in music you are either making it at the top or at the very bottom just trying to make it to play a show. We decided to take up what FBI were offering and give it a go we toured all over the states constantly this enabled us to build up a strong following because this was the new wave/punk music it was very popular over there at the time because people were looking for something new as they were in England and Europe. It was a very good time to go play our music and there were plenty of venues in plenty of backwaters. We also played major cities, in say LA we'd play The Whiskey and other smaller venues then graduate up to The Santa Monica Civic. 999 really appreciated the US audiences who in turn appreciated the band we were proud to break down barriers and share empathy with our audiences there and we received a really fantastic reaction to our music. In the States local and college radio played an enormous role in promoting the live shows and introducing the new music to the local community and involving that community in the stations programming this was something that simply did not happen in the UK there was just no equivalent.