Several years ago, I shared a story-reading hour with two other authors and later FB friended them. One of these guys is a rock band booking agent, specializing in Death Metal and such.

On April 1'st he announced that he was closing his booking business and taking on the position of marketing director for a couple well known 1980s/90s era pop-rock bands.

I congratulated him on the new position, and then learned I'd been April Fooled. Those who know him better than I understood that he'd have never signed up with those pop-rock posers.

In the course of discussion, I suggested he should have chosen bands who were not still alive and touring, and noting his proclivity in the horror direction, suggested that he might like representing a ghost band.

So I wrote the story and shared it with him.

I got a few good critique suggestions, and a longer chat about bands we'd seen - his parents got to see Jimi Hendrix, and Led Zepelin when they were the unknown opening act for Grand Funk Railroad.

I mentioned seeing Fleetwood Mac in 1972, before they were popular-- before Nicks and Buckingham joined the group.

The opening act was a local upstate NY band called Elf.

Turns out that I saw Elf with Ronnie James Dio, who later fronted Black Sabbath, Rainbow, Heaven and Hell, and a few other bands. He's credited as one of the greatest and most influential Heavy Metal singers of all time.

And I heard him before most everyone else.

What I remember is that I put my hands over my ears because the band was so loud it hurt. Apparently Elf was known for being loud, not necessarily for being good.

I found a Youtube recording of one of Elf's other concerts from 1972, and Dio could sing quite well. He did a bunch of melodic songs that I liked as well as the more heavy metal style that he became famous for.

It's amusing that almost exactly 50 years after that concert I learned stuff about the band I knew nothing about at the time.