Teen Idol Tour Concert Photos

What an experience! Itchycoo Park was absolutely huge, I mean it was big, too big. Everything was so spread out. It was HOT too, but at least there weren't any bugs like I thought there'd be. The adult stage was more than a mile from the youth stage. Several kids got lost. It seems that they were always looking for a lost child. One 14 year old was still missing when we left. She had been missing for about 36 hours. I don't know if they ever found her. It was suspected that she had run away. They even did a car check at the gate looking for her.

It was really hot there on Friday. We didn't even make it down to the stage that day at all. The stage was a good 15 minute walk from the gate across a horse field carrying lawn chairs. Bobby wasn't going to be there until Saturday, so we didn't bother to trek all that way in that heat. We visited with Sharon McGinnis and her family in their rented RV. That was nice and air conditioned! We took a ride on the trolly which gave you a tour of the whole place. We stopped for a delicious banana split along the way. That was really nice.

Then we strolled back to the RV area and eventually back to the car. We drove back to the motel and took a refreshing swim. The water was perfect and really helped cool us down. After that we took Sharon's advise for dinner and went to Davy Crocket's Roadhouse for a fantastic steak dinner seasoned with Jack Daniel's meat marinade. Yummy.

The next day we were awakened by the telephone and a voice at the other end said "Rise and Shine, it's Bobby Day!" It was Suzie, she and Nancy were back at their hotel after having spent the whole night in the tent! We were to meet them in front of the stage at about 10am. We had looked for them the day before, but if you had been there you'd know the impossibility of ever finding anyone there. This place was as big as Disney World! There was no way we could ever find their tent on Friday.

So with a predetermined time and place to meet on Saturday we did find them in front of the stage. They and Sharon McGinnis had saved lots of Bobby Babe space right down front. We brought our folding chairs and set up camp for the day. We drank lots of water and got lots of sun. Then at the lunch break we treked back to the car and went to get some lunch and buy Bobby a balloon. We nipped back to the motel to freshen up and who should stop in our open doorway? Peter Noone. I was powdering my face and Diane was brushing her teeth at the sink! Peter was on the cell phone and had already checked out of the hotel. We said Hi and he said, "I'll see you girls at the show later."

We went back to the park and waited for the Teen Idols. It was a long wait. Bobby didn't get to go on until after 10:00 I think. The show was great. I got lots of smiles, points and winks. Bobby even called Suzie and Nancy by name from the stage. I didn't get to kiss or hug him this time though. I couldn't get over all the lawn chairs in my way as he came through the crowd. Micky was good and Peter was perfection of course. Diane gave him a smiley face balloon and he read our card from the stage and said "Oh, it's from the Meck sisters, thank you."

After the show we followed Suzie and Nancy back to their tent to wait for traffic to thin out. There were absolutely no lights whatsoever and it was really dark. You couldn't even see your feet on the ground or see where you were stepping. I made it about 100 yards from the tent when I stepped in a hole and twisted my ankle! I heard it snap and it really hurt. I had to sit there in the middle of the field for a while before I could get up and walk the rest of the way. We sat around the tent for a while and then, Thank God, Phyllis drove us back to our car. I could not have walked that far on my ankle that night for sure. It turned blue the next day and still hurts a week later. Bless you Phyllis!

Diane really wanted to see Davy Jones on Sunday but the promoters ran out of money and we heard that Davy was told not to come. How disappointing :(

Itchycoo seemed plagued with financial problems. All the security people walked off the job when they couldn't pay them. The police and sheriffs deputies had to come in and provide security. After that they wouldn't let them sell anymore tickets on Sunday. There was supposed to be electrical and water hook-ups for the RV's, but the money ran out and there was no electric or water. There was supposed to be a sewage dumping station for the RV's too, but there wasn't. The showers cost $3.00 each. Many vendors left early because they lost so much money. One caterer said he had lost $7,000.00 so far that weekend. They had to sell another 15,000 tickets just to break even. So it was a huge financial disaster. We heard that the promotors filed bankruptcy at 6pm on Saturday night. This place was so big it could have held 5 million people. Huge open fields of nothing. The car show had 2 cars on display! Pitiful.

Bobby was great though, and that's what I went to see! We were told that it was "iffy" whether or not the Teen Idols would go on. We were just lucky to see them I guess. Tommy James was there, but they had no money to pay him so he left. Only about half the acts that were supposed to be there actually performed. They had the ones who did perform play extra long to take up the time. Peter didn't finish his set until almost midnight and that's when they said the music had to stop according to their festival license. So they tried to say that there wasn't time for Tommy James to perform, but we know that was bull.

On Sunday they stretched everything out again and didn't even make an announcement that Davy Jones would not appear. I guess they were running out of excuses. There were stories about missing airplanes and all kinds of stuff. We even heard that one of the girls from Heart wouldn't go on because she'd had a death threat. About 5:00 they put on a local Nashville band and everybody knew then that there were no more big acts coming. So everybody started to leave. The band even said,"Ok People Bear With Us Here." So you know things were getting tense. It was a very uneasy feeling and we feared that once people realized they'd been lied to, that there would be trouble, so we left. Most of the other Babes left at the same time and that left a huge hole in the field where we were all sitting.

We are from the DC area and I guess we are just not used to such wide open spaces. In DC if you had an area that big and that spread out you would be expecting about 5 million people there to fill it. The Mall on the Fourth of July or the Million Man March would have been a drop in the bucket to fill that place. You'd walk yourself to death there, especially since it was so unbearably hot. I for one am ready to admit that I'm just too old to sit outside in the heat for four days roasting in the sun. So Bobby, Peter, Micky, Ward, Donna, Paradise Artists, if you are reading this, please try to book some nice cool air-conditioned venues with assigned, cushioned seating. We're just not cut out for roughing it on the ground outside in the heat! There now ladies, you can't say I didn't at least ask!

Just click on the pictures below to take you to the individual galleries. Once in a gallery you can keep clicking the "Next" buttons and go through the entire Itchycoo photo gallery. We hope you enjoy our pictures on-line but we are not sending out any hard copies of these photos.