Ted Nugent and Robin Hood

Cafe Society
1

In an attempt to prevent a hijack in a pit thread (is that even a thing?), I’m putting this here to try and find out something.

In the pit thread, Jack_Batty posted:

OK. I need some help, here. I’ve seen this reference before on this board a few times (I don’t know if it was always from Jack_Batty or he is simply one), and the “flaming arrows into pictures of Hillary” part I think is new, but is there any truth here?

I ask because back when I was 12 and my older brother was 15, summer of 71, I remember him being all hyped up over Ted Nugent and the Amboy Dukes. As he was beginning to get to the age that he could go to concerts unaccompanied (at least, back then) Ted was one of his first ones. The day after the show, he was telling me how cool it was that Ted was in a Robin Hood outfit, complete with bow and quiver (I don’t remember him saying they were flaming or that he even shot any).

Well, boys age, and by the end of the summer, he was over Ted and the Dukes. Glamor Rock, he called it. He listened to Real Rock and Roll, the likes of Deep Purple. A proper rock group. English. Shades of Deep Purple, even in 1971, had classic status. This, of course was before Machine Head, before “Smoke on the Water,” and before Heavy Metal Rock was really a recognized genre.

Now, I look on the internet for any reference to ol’ Ted wearing a Robin Hood outfit, swinging onto stage, etc…, and I come up empty. I can find one picture of an album cover of Ted with a quiver of arrows across his back, and that’s it. No mention of Robin Hood. Even on the 'Dope, his Robin Hood outfit is changed to a loin cloth. It is like the internet has been sanitized of this, if it ever existed at all.

My brother passed three years ago. All the questions you want to ask, but can’t.

So, are my memories merely figments resulting from a brother embellishing a concert and my trying to match those embellishments with other figments and misunderstandings? Or, was Ted Nugent in a Robin Hood outfit a real thing, some 50 years ago?

2

I saw Nugent at the Aladdin Theater in Vegas probably close to 30 years ago. No swinging, no Robin Hood costume, but there were certainly arrows being shot on stage. Not at Hillary. Before her time, but at a guitar as I recall.

3

Certainly no gimmickry here - look for the rope swing and the loin cloth. I didn’t watch the whole thing (it’s a full concert) but before he plays a note he spends time thrown papierm mâché boulders into the crowd. I’m not sure if he whips out the bow and arrow in this show, though.

I’m not sure where the Robin Hood thing came from. And I don’t know if he ever shot an arrow at Hillary, but he’s not had nice things to say about her, with - if I recall correctly - a semi-automatic rifle in his hand.

4

Nugent has been an archery and bowhunting enthusiast for decades at a minimum. A Robin Hood gig would’ve fit him like a glove, at least in his own mind.

5

Thanks for the replies, especially the video. I am not one who usually watches music videos, but I am glad I clicked on that one. I watched about a minute of it, but it explains a lot.

I vaguely remember “Monsters of Rock”, but a quick search on Wikipedia shows that it was probably a reference to one-day rock festivals held in England from 1980-1996 (missing a couple). There is a note that there was a One-Day show in Oakland in July 1979, where this clip must have come from. I doubt I heard of that show, it must be the ones in England that were repeated for over a decade. I was never much a Monster Rock listener,

I do have a surviving brother, three years older than the one who went to the Nugent show in 1971. I doubt he knows much, at the time he was more into New Riders of the Purple Sage, Pure Prairie League, John Hartford, etc…, and wouldn’t have paid any attention to Ted. He may have heard of him, though, and I should try and find out.

That’s the problem with getting old. While my memory isn’t failing any more than it used to (I’ve always had trouble with details), I used to be able to ask my parents and older siblings about things I couldn’t remember. Now, there are fewer to ask.

Kids, these days…

6

No opinion or memories of a Robin Hood outfit, but my college roommate played me some Amboy Dukes without telling me who was in the group. My opinion: “the guitarist is pretty good, but the album sucks.”

7

Ted Nugent wearing a Robin Hood outfit on stage seems way too over the top, even for the Nuge. He is way too classy for a stunt like that.