“The Full Monty” Indeed!

Lampie the Clown — or, Eric Swan, if you prefer — was Tom’s lighting designer from 1993 to 2004. While passing time in the lighting booth, he shot video of the show and he’s sent some to share.

Eric also answered the April Question of the Month (How do you describe Tom to someone who’s never seen him?) and his answer is really, really nice. He wrote, “I saw the section where you ask how to describe Tom to people who don’t know him. I worked for Tom as Lighting Designer from 1993 to 2004. I would say that he’s a man’s man. He can out drink anyone I know, including me. He knows the punch line of every joke you ever heard, and can tell jokes all night that you never heard. Doing a good show is important to him, but in ten years I never once saw him lose his temper. That said, I doubt he’d be afraid to take a punch, or hand out a few, if the situation warranted it. Like I said, a man’s man. I’m proud to have worked for him.”

The fist clip was shot one night in Europe just before Tom sang You Can Leave Your Hat On from The Full Monthy.

Eric explains: “The Full Monty video was shot when the British band was backing Tom…so I’d guess it was mid to late 1990’s. I’d have to dig pretty deep into boxes to find those old itineraries and show programs to nail it down. Like Tom says, ‘The memory is the second thing to go.’ Ian Thomas was on the drums, so it was before Graham Ward took over that position. It was in Glasgow, Scotland in 1998, soon after the movie The Full Monty became a hit. By thinking about when it was, I’ve created a doubt in my mind about where. I thought it was Scotland, but now I’ve got Belfast in my head. It was near the end of the tour, because I remember Tom saying that if they had done it at the beginning of the tour he’d have made them do it every night. I’m half sure he was joking. There was a photo in the local paper’s entertainment section the next day, along with the review, but I’m confident that this is the only video of the event.

“From left to right there was Kenny Dugan (stage manager), Rory (monitor tech), Simon ‘Fanny’ Franklyn (drum tech, but on later UK tours, stage manager). Behind Tom is Ed Ehrbar (monitor engineer), then an audio tech who’s name I don’t remember, Johnny Harper (lighting tech), Dave Nelson (backline tech, but now stage manager in the US), and all the way right, Cyril Thomas (guitar tech). ”

The second video, the Truckers Dance, was taken at the very end of the show in June 2003, at the Atlantic Pavilion in Lisbon. The truckers names are Mick Chester, Dave Harris & Tyrone Bramwell.
Eric said, “That is indeed Sharon Hendrix, along with Christi Black and Darelle Holden. The truckers names are Mick Chester, Dave Harris & Tyrone Bramwell.”

There’s not a lot of Tom in the footage and it could have more clarity, but it’s terrific nonetheless and we’re so lucky Eric sent it. You’ll find it in the TJI.com Video Library. Enjoy it!

This is way off the subject, but as I was posting this I thought of Burt Reynolds’ appearance on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson. Reynolds had just posed nude for Cosmo and they were discussing it. Reynolds noted that he’d used a baseball mitt to cover himself. Without missing a beat, Carson said, “Well, Burt, I’d need a catcher’s mitt.”