Lee Loughnane Recalls Being Hit with Chicken Bones at Early Chicago Gig: ‘They Threw It at the Band’ (Exclusive)

Loughnane notes that the “Saturday in the Park” band would “throw something back” when given the opportunity

 

Not every day in the band Chicago’s career has been a “Saturday in the Park,” as trumpeter Lee Loughnane recalls.

Despite the decades of success, awards and accolades resulting in the band still actively packing out arenas in 2024, there was once a time where fans quite literally threw food scraps at the group.

It all stemmed from a botched marketing ploy thought up by a club owner who promised patrons free chicken for attending a Chicago concert, the group’s founding member tells PEOPLE.

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“You know what happens when you finish a piece of chicken and all you have left is the bone? They threw it at the band,” Loughlane states of the experience.

Getting pelted with chicken bones isn’t exactly an enjoyable experience for most, but the musician notes that it wasn’t all bad. “So you have to live through some of that stuff. At least it wasn’t oranges. And they actually still liked what we were doing. It was just sort of drunks doing crazy stuff,” he says.

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“It wasn’t really outrageous either,” he adds of the experience. “Every once in a while somebody would throw something up at the stage, we’d throw something back at him, most likely, knowing us.”

Food scraps aside, Loughnane heralds those early moments playing in small venues with Chicago as essential to the band’s success for years to come.

“Our musical ideas were we were just allowed to be free,” he shares. “And we finally found a club owner that let us play new music, that we didn’t have to keep playing the top 40. They wanted to hear original tunes. All of a sudden they didn’t mind us playing them. And then, so that was our introduction into other people listening to what we had to bring to the table.”