The Reunions

October 1970 - During the summer of 1970, Reginald Leach, now working as the road manager of Herman's Hermits, happened to meet Ian and Stan Webb's Chicken Shack as they had both booked their bands in the Brighton Beach Summer Festival. After some initial reluctance, Ian began speaking with Reggie again. Turns out, Reggie was putting the finishing touches on an outdoor tour of the UK with some name bands such as the Spencer Davis Group, The Yardbirds, and The Hollies that would start in the fall. His ideas was to put together a "super tour" of bands that had hits in the mid-1960's. Reggie thought the Dover Souls should be part of the lineup and offered Ian a lot of money if he could put the band back together. Because it was more money than they'd made off royalties in the last three years combined, Ian said he would contact Anthony, Nigel and George and see if they were interested. Nigel and George said yes to the idea immediately but Anthony initially said no. He remembered the bad break-up the band had and how angry he was. But Ian was insistent. After thinking it over, and realizing he too needed the money, Anthony changed his mind and agreed to play in the tour. Anthony flew to England for the first time in almost four years to practice with his band mates.

As soon as the lads got back together the same old tensions began to appear. Outwardly, Nigel, Ian and George said they held no animosity towards Anthony, but subconsciously they did. A roadie with the tour recalled the band arguing at a sound check, "I remember thinking to myself, 'these guys don't like each other and don't want to be here'". The first night of the tour was at Hyde Park in London on Sunday October 4, 1970, with the Souls set to appear following The Hollies. The set went off alright and the lads got a decent ovation at the end of their act. Later that night, after getting very drunk, Anthony backed Ian's wife Susanne into a corner and attacked her. Ian and Nigel broke it up and it was written off as a drunken mistake. However, this was the beginning of the end for the boys, again.  Fighting and bickering, they made it to the sixth show, October 4, 1970 in Milton Keynes at the National Bowl, before the tensions came to a head. George, who up until then had been on good behavior, overdosed on sleeping pills and had to be rushed to the hospital the morning of the show. At the Hospital, Ian and Anthony got into an argument, that led to a fist fight, that ended with Ian breaking two of his fingers. With Ian unable to continue the Dover Souls withdrew from the tour and Anthony returned to California.

July 1975 - In May of 1975 Ian was contacted by Scott Muni, a disc jockey for WNEW, the famous rock and roll radio station in New York City. He wanted the Dover Souls to be part of a giant 60's British rock revival that was being planned for July 3 & 4, 1975 at Madison Square Gardens titled British Independence Day. Some of the other bands scheduled to play were The Dave Clark Five, Herman's Hermits, Gerry and the Pacemakers, Peter and Gordon and John Mayall's Bluesbreakers. WNEW, acting as the promoter, offered the lads a substantial appearance fee and also offered a percentage of the live album that would be released following the shows. In recent years the residual checks for Misty Monday Mornings were getting smaller and smaller and Ian realized that this was a way for the band to continue to make money. Ian called Anthony in California and spoke to him for the first time since their incident at the hospital in 1970. Anthony agreed to appear with the following stipulations: that it was one show only, that he would not practice with the band and that he would not join them until the day of the show. Ian thought it was crazy not to practice since they hadn't played together for almost 5 years, but he agreed to send tapes of their practices to Anthony.

Ian, Nigel and George landed at JFK airport in New York on July 1, 1975 and went through customs. After a cursory check of their bags, Nigel and George were both arrested on charges of smuggling drugs with the intent to distribute. George had a quarter pound of marijuana hidden in one of his drums and Nigel had 352 various pills, all controlled narcotics, stowed in one of his guitar cases. All the drugs belonged to George who had hidden them in Nigel's case without his knowledge. Never the less, the two were taken to jail and the appearance at Madison Square Gardens is lost.

Nigel was cleared of all charges and released after spending a three weeks in jail. George would end up spending six months fighting the arrest before getting the charges dropped on a technicality (George's attorney's argued that the drugs were placed in his drum kit by a roadie and the US Government couldn't prove otherwise). George was deported back to England on December 28, 1975 and banned from returning to the United States.