User:Gregory CHarold/sandbox

I don't know if I'm in the right section or not but I imagine someone will take notice and maybe contact me and head me in the right direction. I have a story to tell before my time on earth is through and I want to tell the story and several articles and books that touch on the subject have been published by several people. I know for sure one biography was written that touches on an incident that was accounted by in the biography of Gene Simmons of the rock band KISS.I know first hand information that has never been given a complete account of an incident that happened July8,1976 in the coliseum in Richmond, Virginia at a Kiss show.(Bob Segar and the silver bullet band  was the opening act that night.)I'm not sure how to go about doing this but I am the only surviving person left that was involved and knows the complete history of the day and night leading to the interruption of the Kiss show that night.If a band member mainly Mr.Gene Simmons or his author or an author of one the other books that contain a reference to the story of Kiss getting basically (Peter Criss) getting blown off his drum stool and a front snare drum being blown off his drumstand,I am 63 years old now and would like to tell the account and clear this mystery of what actually was thrown and blew up at the show that night.Its been 47 years I believe since that night occurred.Not one I am at all proud of anymore but sincerely sorry that I was the willing participant that contributed to lighting the explosive object that blew up that night and I thank my higher power that none of the band members were injured. You see I was fifteen years old then and a young,wild,teenager that grew up and experienced the 70's from the ways and means as a teenager. I will go on and finish the details and hope this will clear the air about who and what was thrown that night in Richmond, Virginia Coliseum. The story starts at about 10 A.M. in a small city,Fredericksburg, Virginia at a old motel that was a rooming house type place from an old motor court type of motel.I won't mention any other names except one alas that died in a tragic motorcycle accident many years back now.I am the only living person who knows the exact account of this alive.The other participant  who actually made the incendiary device that was thrown was the one in the motorcycle accident, his alias was "Poodle"he had long,very curly blond hair thus he was given the alias of Poodle.That morning there I believe was four of us at my older friends room that morning, where we were smoking a Bicentennial joint as we named it.It looked like a Peace sign .Irrelevant, but probably was the first contributing factor that helped build up to our poor judgment that we used at the show that night. Well,Poodle came in and was sitting next to me and he said he had something cool he'd spent most of the night perfecting and pulled out this thing that was looked like it was just a bunch of duct tape rolled up and a piece of a fuse he had rolled very tightly with a piece of a fuse sticking out of it.He said he had made it that early morning out of gun powder that he had taken out of a can his father had.All of us young people still had quite a bit of the big Independence celebration oozing from us young people. Poodle,explained that he tried like five times to get a firecracker as he called it and satisfied that it would ignite when lit.After seeing this and he made a comment that he might blow Kiss off the stage that night. He had this big cheesy grin and none of us took him very serious because his invention looked like it wouldn't even light much less blow up!Well. we all went our separate ways and Poodles firecracker was soon forgotten. Well,that night I got my ride to the show in Richmond. It was a five dollar general admission show I'm pretty sure and we got there before the doors opened so we could save our place in front of the stage.We probably ended up about six or seven people between us and the stage,we were happy with our "slot" for the show.Several friends came by and a couple more stayed with three others than me stayed in our standing room only 'slot".Well,Kiss was on the stage playing a very good show and it was extremely loud and plenty of pyrotechnics going off.Well,low and behold Poodle finds us and stands down with us.Everyone is intently watching the show and Poodle nudges me with a big grin on his face he starts to slide his over grown firecracker out of his pocket. I very discreetly pulled my cigarette lighter out of my pocket and told Poodle he didn't have a "hair on his ass"..he stuck the fuse in the fire and it lit!Poodle was a pitcher on our old baseball team and didn't have a problem throwing it towards the stage.We watched it hit the top of Peter Criss's drum stand and much to I think both of us astonishment it went BOOM!Peter Criss rolled back off his drum set and it blew one of the snare drums clean off it's stand!I saw Gene Simmons and Paul Stanley look at each other and towards Peter Criss,they unplugged their guitars and they crouched down and made for exit off the stage.Well,the crowd made quite the roar as the audience thought it was part of the pyrotechnics from the show.It felt like several minutes and the lights in the coliseum came on.Pretty soon this representative from Kiss came on the stage and told us that Kiss was certainly shook up,but they would be back.Then this is a quote,he said,"I don't know who threw that overgrown firecracker at the stage,but certainly hoped he'd be tracked down and someone needed their ass kicked!"Poodle looked at me and said "Uh Oh!" and took off.The last glimpse I got was of him running up the coliseum steps and there was five or six people chasing him.It turned out he ran to the Greyhound bus terminal and caught a bus back to Fredericksburg, Virginia.Peter Criss came back on first and probably played on of the best drum solos of his career I'm sure. The rest of the night went off without incident.It was the next day when Poodle approached me at the park and told me he got chased all the way to the Greyhound station and caught the bus back home.It is a moment in time I remember quite well,not proud of and I today would like to express my apologies to the Kiss band for our thoughtless neglect for their safety and interrupting their show and their decision not to play in Richmond again for many years to come.This story is completely true and to the best of my memory all true and factual. I've never publicly ever told this story.I tried a couple times to get a couple reporters whom I knew had contact with the band members to help me clear the air of the matter,but never even got a response back.Thank all who read this to help spread the true facts about how,what,and who was responsible that night for such a devious act.My whole intention on writing this is for peace of mind and hopefully I'm sure will answer what the heck happened that July night in Richmond,Virginia. Gregory C HaroldSource of information is only accounted from my memory.