Messin' with the Bull, Gets You the Horn
By Harvey Borley
Another group that Borley developed was Nazareth, a Scottish Rock Band from the 1980s that still tours today in 2008.
Nazareth was enjoying a Canadian tour, which ended in Victoria, British Columbia, yet another sold out show, before leaving for the Australian leg of their World Tour. The night before, they played to 20,000 screaming fans, dancing and singing along with the band. Nazareth had a successful show at the Pacific Coliseum, when they got word that Deep Purple was playing the next night in town. The band chose to stay in Vancouver to attend Borley's sold-out show featuring the famous band, instead of flying to Victoria for their own gig.
Nazareth was standing in the wing clapping along with the band, while 12,000 wet fans were waiting outside the Victoria arena to get into their show. Harvey became enraged after seeing the crowd, so much so that he arranges to steal the band's equipment off the airliner leaving for Australia. The start to the band's Australian and New Zealand tour began with no gear. The band shows up, no gear, no show.
The Royal Canadian Mounted Police showed up at Borley's residence, and knowing about the band's poor behaviour of not showing up in Victoria, proceeds to inform him that the equipment that was removed off the jet was in bond and belonged to the Canadian Government at this point -- Borley could not dispose of the equipment. The equipment was sitting in his brother-in-law's garage for 3 weeks until compensation is worked out to Harvey's satisfaction.
Nazareth writes a song about Borley called "Vancouver Shakedown", and Borley starts a recording company called Astro Records, and writes and releases a tune called "Messin' with the Bull Gets You the Horn".
To this day, some 20-some-odd years later, the group Nazareth takes the position that they were in the right; and never in the wrong for showing the disrespect to their fans, and breaching their contract with Borley.
Borley's side of the story had been documented by the press of the day.
This once mighty band has been renegade to the status of a bar band, having troubles filling a three hundred seat venue, a far cry from Borley's twenty or thirty thousand seater sold out shows on an almost nightly basis.
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