Paul McCartney's Buddy Holly Party - By Kevin Montgomery

OK ......cool experience. Tony Bramwell (our UK promotion guy)was The Beatles road manager (among other things)and still works with Paul McCartney on occassion. Without my knowledge, Tony sends McCartney a copy of "Another Long Story"....well, McCartney calls Tony and says that he'd like me to come play a couple of songs at the Buddy Holly tribute party that he holds annually. Of course, i was freaking out, and so were the rest of the guys(Robert Reynolds,Paul Deakin,Pat Buchanon,Jeff Finlin) when i told them. Robert was especially excited, because he had recieved an invitation to
last year's party and was unable to attend because of the commitment he made to musical direct the party held at Exit/Inn on the same night---where we ultimately met and played together,and started conceptualizing this whole UK tour!!!! I told Tony to try and get everyone invited and i would come....he did and so of we went in our best party duds.

What a great time we had!! The best part of the night was watching Robert's face when Paul McCartney walked into the room and started mingling with the guests!!!!! The usual calm, cool, and collected Robert was like a kid at Christmas time.....looking at the brandbicycle he'd wanted all year!!!!!!! He was awestruck....it -new was really cool, because he had grown up wanting to be a Beatle, and now he was meeting one!!!!!! Paul took one look at us....all five of us...standing in our best party duds and said, jokingly, " I'm not coming near you lot," We must have been quite the sight.....all of us standing there staring at him!!! But he did come over and speak to us for a little while,and was very gracious. A little while later...after some lovely VEGETARIAN food...a guy came up and asked what key i did "Wishing" in. I said i didn't know, cuz' i don't know these things, but Pat did. Paul got up and sang a couple of Buddy Holly songs, then we were called to the stage to play. We performed "Wishing",and then were about to leave the stage, but Paul was leading the crowd in their calls for "more"!!!! So, we grabbed our guitars and went into "Not Fade Away"--which Robert sings...what a blast!!! What a great moment this was....it was something i had dreamed about since i was a kid. I got to sing song my dad wrote for Buddy Holly in London for one of the Beatles!!!

We got off-stage and McCartney was hugging all of us and joking around. We had the photo op moment, and guess what!!??!!! Out of two cameras....ONLY one picture was taken!!!!!(you can find this picture and others of the evening at http://www.kevinmontgomery.com/photos4.html ) Pat had only 1 or 2 pictures left on his roll and the other camera just malfunctioned....oh, well. The mood was jovial after that, and Robert introduced me to Jack and Coke. We then went back to the hotel...loaded everything in the van and drove all night towards our show in Glasgow...with me sleeping with my face pressed against the window in the back of the van!!!! Eating a late night-early morning breakfast of pre-packaged sandwiches from the convenience store (this is what we lived on for three weeks!!!!) Glamorous, huh!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Pat Buchanan, Paul Deakin, Paul somebody?!, Kevin Montgomery, Robert Reynolds and Jeff Finlin