What was wrong with Cat Stevens in Majikat Tour??

[m@kansascity]

great story

now i finally know from who bob dylan stole his hate for photos :-)

[Dusty_Day]

turan said:

Some where or other there is an article, here or in the old CScom archives, about this. Yusuf was traveling at that time with an oxygen tank and mask and was, indeed, taking 'hits' before he preformed. The article quotes Alun joking about going through customs with this paraphinaelia.

I found the text below in the Boxed Set booklet

Alun Davies: Steve was always very free with his advice and his latest fads, with all of us. So if he was vegetarian for part of a tour, he was a dangerous person to go out for a meal with — ‘still eating dead cow, Alun?’ He was a great advocate of having pure oxygen, and he had an oxygen mask — something not many of us were privy to packing in our suitcases before we’d go on the road! Whether this was banapple gas or not I don’t know.

And the following from an interview in Classic Rock mag dated November 2004:-

Here’s how Cat Stevens used to get high before a show: “You need to loosen up before going on stage. So to have a drink beforehand was very natural. But you can overdo it, and then you can’t sing in tune. So I found that using a certain amount of oxygen after a couple of beers or whatever could put you in just the right spot. But you’d still be in control. It was just a strange little recipe I worked out. It was to get me lucid. So I knew exactly what I was doing and playing.”

OK, it comes pretty low down in the annals of rock’n’roll excess, but his audience could sometimes he forgiven for thinking that he might have taken something a little stronger. On the recently released DVD of his 1976 Majikat tour of North America, he gets carried away when the lights get turned on the crowd: 'You're beautiful. I’m so glad it’s you and not them. Who ever they are. Who are they, anyway? They are we, man, they are we. We are me. I am... Who am I?”

This little monologue comes shortly before he advises us: “If everybody could love Alfred Hitchcock the world would be a better place.”

Maybe the world would be a better place if we all took a hit of liquid oxygen once in a while? “That was me trying to connect, trying to relax between songs,” he says with a chuckle. “I think I was a comical fellow in some sense. A lot of people didn't know I had a very funny side to me. I enjoyed a good laugh. But most of my songs were serious.”

But as for getting out of it before a show, don’t even think about it. “I was far too much of a control freak,” he says. The Majikat Earth tour was about as big as it got for Cat Stevens. He’d ridden the crest of the singer-songwriter wave through the first half of the 70s alongside the likes of James Taylor and Carole King, and he was now playing to 15-20,000 people a night at arenas around America.

Happy New Year to all

Linda

[krispypink]

Thanks for sharing that, Linda.

Happy New Year to you too!

[thewind]

Did you say claws? Cats have claws...

I watched the video... It was obviously the last song once you watch the end.. i'd say he was playing around...

Whoooops... i replied without going past the first page... Must be awake when I touch the omputer...

[withacat]

About the influence thing - Yusuf clearly sais, when being asked about drugs etc, that there were episodes, he wasnt exactly a saint, but leaves out the details, so we could speculate on it here:))))
I think in "behind the music" he also sais about why he quit performing"competition, ehm,sex drugs rock'n'roll" - things around music tha contraverse with Islam.
Of course he didnt mean he was sex-obsessed 24/7 drunk halucinating freak:))))
Its just i suppose there were moments...and obviously he wasnt that much into that stuff...
For heavens sake, it was 70ies and he was a wealthy rock superstar! )
Anyway - i dont think he was onto smth in the dvd. Oxygen:)

[johannesmaria73]

Hello...
Believe it or not, last time I was here dates back to 2005... I decided to come back after reading this thread.
I can't comprehend why certain things must not be discussed when we're talking of a public figure. We love him, yes we do, but I love him also because he did certain things as he CLEARLY did in Williamsburg in 1976...
More than <<Peace Train>>, my attention goes to the <<Two Fine People>> bit.
Can anyone explain to me why Steven/Cat/Yusuf (how are you referring to him?) all at once shouted <<stoopid idiot!>> (with an American accent, too) to someone in the audience? Not only... he added things like <<what's it like to be going to school and still 50?>> and something about "arsenholes who still go to school"... then, while playing the tune he totally forgot the words and in the end found himself needing soething to rhyme with <<I'll never lead you away>> (where did this sentence come out of?), so he was forced to sing <<darling, every little need will be gay>>"!?!?!?!?
Come on, let's not hide it all behind covers because 'ooh, ye dared touch our almighty God'... I don't think this attitude towards an artist is healthy, to be honest. Steven was a human being who played gigs in the '70s and - like it or not - lived the life of a rock'n'roll star, he himself once said <<I indulged in everything I could>>.
I won't imply he was high on something, I'm simply still wondering where those things came out of, I'm curious about ANYTHING related to Steven, that's how I call him.
Can anyone answer without complaining about the fact some of us have found certain things a wee bit 'bizarre'?