Ray Furlotte/Road Manager: "Dec. 22, 1976; The best day of my life up to that point. I stood on this stage and watched my favourite band (and employer) thrill the sold out crowd of 2,760 fans who came on a freezing cold winter's night, 3 days before Christmas to see the only band performing at Massey Hall that night ... the Toronto - Massey Hall premiere of SYMPHONIC SLAM”
View from Massey Hall stage
View of Massey Hall stage
Concert tickets
Book: "Massey Hall" - written by David McPherson
I was contacted by my friend Nick Panaseiko, who'd been involved with Symphonic Slam since day 1 of their coming to Canada. He was the concert promoter for the Rush-Symphonic Slam concert back in 1975. It was his label, "Lady Records", that released "Timo-SSll", the second Slam album. He told me he'd been contacted by a guy writing a book about Massey Hall and the artists who performed there since it opened in 1894. He told me he gave the guy my contact info as Nick felt I could tell the story better. I thought nothing more of it, but awhile later "David" contacted me. He asked me if I'd write a story about how a basically unknown band managed to play their first concert headlining Massey and selling it out without even an opening act. So I wrote him a fairly long history of how it all happened and sent him a bunch of press materials. I never expected it to make it into the book as there'd been 1,000's of acts performing there. But to my surprise, after considerable editing, David included Slam's story in his book. This is the story he wrote...
This is the front cover...
"Massey Hall" book page 93
"Massey Hall" book page 95
The above 3 images from the book "Massey Hall" were used with permission of the author David McPherson and the publisher Dundurn Press Ltd. Canadians can buy the book at Amazon.ca or worldwide at Amazon.com
Listen to 'Times Run Short'
Massey Hall ~ click once to open in viewer, and again to enlarge
The above photographs are courtesy of, and used with permission of the photographer, Tom Mohr (except first & last slide)
For the past 45 years the only photographs of the Massey Hall concert I've ever seen were the first & last pictures above. I never saw the band from the audience view (I was kinda busy backstage). On the 45th Anniversary of the release of the debut album I posted about it in a couple Facebook groups I belong to. A very kind gentleman, named Tom Mohr, mentioned he had some pictures he had shot and would dig them up and post some. Sure enough he came thru and posted 4 concert photos and a shot of the concert tickets (I never saw them before). And if that weren't enough he offered to give me the 16 35mm slides he shot at the concert. He said only a few were good and the rest not so much. I thanked him immensely and told him that what might not be of interest to anyone else might be very important to me. A short while later a package arrived with the 16 slides and he even gave me one of his concert tickets. I couldn't believe his generousity. When I touched the concert ticket, in my mind I travelled back to that night 45 years ago. Thanks again Tom, your generousity is very much appreciated.