By Martin Popoff
"In the case of this year, to give you the best example, you know, Cinderella are friends of ours. Two years ago they went out with us for the summer and back in the '80s and early '90s we toured with them several times. Our two bands virtually broke like a month apart, back in '86, '87 when we first came out of the chute. We grew up together and we're from the same genre and we were just always dear friends. And I think our two bands complement each other. So with Cinderella, it was an easy pick. We had a great time two years ago, they're available, we know them personally, so we put that together quickly. Winger, the interest in Winger... we like those guys and had toured with them back in the day as well and Winger hasn't been around for a long time and actually, a long story short, Reb Beach came to me two years ago and asked if they put Winger back together, would we consider them for the tour and I told him, yes we would. So that's what happened. And Faster Pussycat, there's another case in point. We grew up in the same circuit in Los Angeles and Taime Downe was a very close friend of ours growing up in the club days."
As Bobby explains, get ready for a long, hard ride (at the back of the bus, or possibly in the cramped quarters of the can, or maybe in the coffin-like crypt of a well-traveled bunk). "We're at 70 dates and moving forward. This first leg is like 48 and the next leg, I have 22 booked so far and another 10 or 20 are coming and I've got European and foreign offers coming after that. I might do it this year. We've been given pretty good offers and we're putting it together. There's a chance of us and Cinderella going over."
"The neck is doing very well," explains Bobby when asked for a doctor's report. "Like I say, I had emergency surgery, two discs replaced and I spent about four weeks down on my back, and by September I was up and moving slowly. I took it really easy this winter and the fusion is doing well and it's healing very nicely. I'm cautious, you know? I'm not coming off the cabinets from nine feet above. My days of that are probably done. Otherwise, I've actually been pleasantly surprised when I hit the stage last week. Because that was actually the first activity I'd done since I broke my neck. I was surprised that I really wasn't limited."
