CARLTON FLETCHER: Looking Glass: Rock’s bad boys?

Brandy, you’re a fine girl, what a good wife you would be. But my life, my lover, my lady is the sea.

— Looking Glass

I was driving into work the other morning and I heard the old Looking Glass song “Brandy (You’re a Fine Girl)” on the radio. As it always does, that brought back memories of one of maybe my worst concert experiences ever.

It was 1974, and Looking Glass, a band that formed at Rutgers University in New Jersey and had scored a couple of hits (“Brandy,” which went to No. 1 in ‘72, and “Jimmy Loves Mary-Anne,” a Top 40 hit in ‘73) on the pop charts, was something of a hot commodity. They were, it turns out, looking to add gigs to expand the tour they were doing to capitalize on their hits.

My brother, Donny, also a newspaper guy who loves music as much as I do and influenced me probably more than anyone musically, somehow got word that Looking Glass were looking to book shows. So he decided he’d take a stab at the music promoting business. Looking back, I can’t even imagine the logistical nightmare that must have been.

OK, so you’ve got a national act out on the road, looking to add shows to their touring schedule, and this 21-year-old guy from Ocilla, Georgia, decides he will book the band. My brother had no previous experience to use as proof that he was, indeed, legit, he was working as low man on the totem pole at a local CPA firm, and — oh yeah — there weren’t a whole heck of a lot of venues around Ocilla with enough seats to make such a venture feasible.

But my brother didn’t let any of those obstacles get in his way. He — amazingly … I still don’t know how he did it — managed to book Looking Glass and opening act Floyd, which played frequently at the lone Ocilla venue capable of hosting any kind of musical event, the Community House, which also was the site of Irwin County High’s annual “white prom” … another story for another time.

Showing what I thought was a pretty good dose of that old Fletcher ingenuity (it’s what’s made us so wealthy), my brother managed to book the Tift Theater in downtown Tifton to host the concert. The movie house was right in the middle of town, had comfortable seating and was big enough to bring in a sizable crowd. There was a great deal of excitement in the area after the show was announced.

But this was 1974. There was no social media to spread the word, buying advertising on media outlets available was an iffy proposition on the limited budget my brother had to work with, and — unknown at the time — there was a group in Tifton working to undermine the show, no doubt fearing the “hippie element” that would attend. I’m sure their hysterical opposition centered around visions of a bunch of damned hippies tearing the theater apart and then maybe going on a rampage in the fair city. Rioting, looting, raping and pillaging were no doubt discussed as likelihoods.

It was a smallish- to medium-sized crowd that came to the Tift Theater, and things went pretty well during Floyd’s opening set. Then came Looking Glass.

The lead singer — Elliot Lurie — said, “We’re going to go ahead and get these out of the way so that we can get down to rocking with y’all.” And the band played its hits, “Jimmy” and “Brandy,” eschewing that old concert staple of holding the songs everyone came for until the end to keep the audience around.

About midway through Looking Glass’ set, Lurie said, “You people get out of your seats and move around. This is a rock and roll show.”

Several responded immediately … and that’s when all hell broke loose.

Scattered throughout the audience, it turned out, were members of local law enforcement agencies. (I remember thinking the grandfather-looking dude sitting directly in front of me looked out of place, but I just assumed he was a cool grandfather. He wasn’t.) As people stood up and started dancing to the music, these law enforcement types started pulling the kids back into their seats, telling them if they stood up they would be arrested.

My brother made an announcement about law enforcement saying everyone had to remain seated — and, given his Fletcherness, he added a few choice words — and some of us in the crowd started booing. I remember standing up and shouting, and the grandfather dude sitting in front of me turned around, showed his badge and said, “Boy, if you don’t sit down right now, your ass is going to spend the night in jail.”

Being the rebel and the anti-establishment tough guy I was, I sat down.

Several other folks didn’t, though, and, as promised, they, along with my brother, members of the band — who became agitated at what was going on and made some comments of their own — and anyone else who rubbed one of these officers the wrong way was arrested.

Looking Glass, as is always the case, have faded into obscurity after their 15 minutes of rock fame ended. But the band will always be the group that, for one night in Tifton, Georgia, became the bad boys of rock and roll that they probably dreamed they’d be.

Contact Carlton Fletcher at [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter @ABH_Fletcher.