A recently found story from the Chicago Tribune.
Johnny B.
Good
In Fact He`s Great, Say The Many Fans Of WLUP's Outrageous
Morning Star
December
07, 1986|By Article by Eric Zorn, a
metropolitan reporter and former radio writer.
The
dream became a nightmare for Jonathon Brandmeier on June 4, 1983, when
he took the stage at Poplar Creek Music Theatre and the howls of outrage
began.
He had finally made it, or so he thought. Five years
earlier he had been sitting in the orange plastic pavilion seats of the
Chicago area`s largest concert arena with his girlfriend, Lisa Nicelli,
watching enviously as John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd danced around in dark
suits and sunglasses, playing the Blues Brothers.
"God, I`d give
anything to do that," he said to Lisa. "I'd give anything to get up
there and be with those guys and play."
At the time, Brandmeier was a loudmouthed, 21-year-old disc jockey
based in Rockford who occasionally made extra money banging on drums and
singing for lounge bands. From there his professional travels took him
to Milwaukee and then to Phoenix, where he continued both his radio and
musical acts. Word of his talents spread, and early in 1983 WLUP-FM
(97.9), then the loudest, nastiest music station in Chicago, won a
nationwide battle for his services and signed him to host its
morning-drive program.
To help introduce Brandmeier to listeners,
WLUP arranged for him and his good-time, comedy-rock band to be the
opening act for Molly Hatchet and Scandal, two of the loudest, nastiest
bands in the business. Their fans, the black-T-shirt crowd that annually
made the WLUP rock stage at ChicagoFest an appalling tableau of the
dissolution of modern youth, were horrified.
Debris sailed out of
the audience. Get the hell off the stage! You stink! After half an hour
Brandmeier scampered into the wings, devastated. He did not return to
Poplar Creek in Hoffman Estates until June 6 of this year, nearly three
years to the day after the Molly Hatchet/Scandal debacle. Again, he was
there as part of a radio-station promotion. But this time he and his
Leisure Suits band were the featured performers, not an opening act. And
the surly teenagers were gone, replaced by a clean-cut, sellout crowd
of 20,000 baby-boomers.
Brandmeier was to make his entrance from
above on a hydraulic lift, lowered to the stage with his pants around
his ankles. As he was poised to begin his descent, he looked out from
his darkened perch in the rafters and saw thousands of flickering
flames. He heard the rolling, insistent chant,
"John-nee!
John-nee! John-nee!", and he knew the dream was finally a reality.
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