But as much as I wanted to be a musician and be on the stage, I think I enjoy being on the other side of the stage even more. As soon as was able to do so, I started attending as many concerts as I could. Now these were different times and apparently a young teenage boy had unlimited options. I could jump on a train and head into New York City without a care. I don't remember where I even got the money to pay for the tickets! I would stuff some dollar bills into an envelope and send it off to the Fillmore East, requesting tickets for the show I wanted to see and I would either get the tickets or my money returned. Then came the Ticketron system or waiting online at the box office of various venues. The how's and why's escape me, but I found myself in the thick of it. The noise, the lights, the smells - and that magical moment when the band came bounding on to the stage. My heroes, stepping out from the LP covers of my growing record collection, larger than life and loud as hell, taking me and my fellow music lovers on a musical magic carpet ride.
I can't even guesstimate how many concerts I've been to since my first show - The Beach Boys at the Commack Arena - in 1968. Let's just say it's a lot. I've probably seen certain bands more times that most people have seen concerts altogether. I've been lucky to see some very special shows, American debuts, swan songs, final curtains, revivals and train wrecks. I've witnessed special guests, nervous breakdowns, equipment failures and no-shows. I'm not boasting when I say that I've seen all, because I really feel that I have. At the height of my concert going days, I could easily have gone to 10 shows a month and even some back-to-back. I remember seeing Robert Gordon at My Father's Place with Chris Spedding on guitar and immediately buying a ticket for the next night. I went to the Nassau Coliseum two nights in a row seeing Paul McCartney the first night, then CSNY the next. There were multi-night events like the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame shows at Madison Square Garden or the Arista Records benefit for New York City. And, of course, there were the various Springsteen residencies from the Bottom Line to the Meadowlands, where I found myself coming back night after night.
But nothing compares to the weekend I had in late July, early August of 1971.
I was all of 16 years old in 1971. My son is turning 16 this July. I can't even fathom him in my shoes, doing the things I was doing at that point in my life, but I hope that in someway, he's building similar memories. By the time I was 16 there was nothing else in my life but music. Music, music, music. Maybe girls - no, definitely girls, but even they took a back seat to the music. And in 1971, to me, the pinnacle of music was The Who.
I had been a fan of The Who for quite some time. Thanks to the glory of FM radio, especially WNEW, my rabid need to read every possible music magazine being printed at the time, and hanging out in record stores as much as possible, I had gotten an early jump on The Who, way before they began to make their mark in America. This was also due to my meeting Iain Morrison, who's musical knowledge and outstanding record collection was no doubt the biggest influence on my musical adventures. Iain, who moved here from Scotland, turned me and our other friends onto bands that we may not have otherwise heard of as well as supplying exotic sources of music news like the Melody Maker and the NME. I truly cannot underestimate what he brought to my life.
I quickly built up my collection of The Who's first albums and they became my band. I scoured record stores for bootlegs and imports. I remember being a bit mocked at a party when I bought my Who albums - this was pre-Tommy and even though they had a toe in American pop radio, they were yet not well known. And I remember showing up at Korvettes in Huntington on the day that "Tommy" was released. I had made friends with the record department manager - I'm sure I was one his best customers - and he let me in early as we opened the box and handed me the first copy. Now they were starting to get some traction on the radio and I just couldn't wait to see them live. I had read about the shows - the smashing of the instruments, the swinging microphones, Keith Moon and all. My brothers had actually seen them - at the Commack Arena - when they opened up for The Vanilla Fudge, I believe in 1967. But in these pre-internet days, I had only heard their studio recordings. I think that I probably saw "Montery Pop" but I remember getting "Live At Leeds" and being completely taken back. I had never heard anything like this. Then the Woodstock movie solidified them - to me - as the ultimate rock band. Who else even came close? Who made a sound like this? Was there any better definition of a rock star than Roger Daltrey, bare chested and defiant, standing in the middle of this sonic storm of chaos, distortion and pop-rock perfection? Not to this boy and boy, did I want to experience this. My turn was coming soon.
Saturday, July 31st, 1971. The Who at the Forest Hills Tennis Stadium.
Now this was quite some time ago, 49 years if you're counting, and my memories are a bit, well, weathered. But I clearly remember being very excited that I would finally experience my band live and in person. They had a new album coming out, but the only thing that had been released was a single - "Won't Get Fooled Again" - and, as you can imagine, it wetted our appetite in a big way. We took the train to Forest Hills, and by we I'm not really sure who the "we" was. I'm fairly certain that the above mentioned Iain Morrison was with me and I know that one of our pals, Larry Lachman was at the show, though I'm not certain who sat with me. This concert turned out to be the first time I bought tickets from a scalper. We had tickets, but we thought we were buying better seats. I think it turned out to be the other way around. It was a hot, muggy night though an improvement from the show they played on the Thursday before where it rained pretty much throughout the performance. Labelle opened the show, though I doubt they played "Lady Marmalade" which they didn't record until 1974. I don't remember too much of their performance, though the New York Times described them as "a rather grating singing trio" in their review.
With "Who's Next" being released on August 14th, we were hearing many of the songs performed that night for the first time. Besides "Won't Get Fooled Again," they performed "Love Ain't For Keeping," "My Wife," "Bargain," and "Behind Blue Eyes." They seemed to be putting "Tommy" on the back burner, only performing "Pinball Wizard" and "See Me, Feel Me." We were treated to four songs from the mod era: "I Can't Explain," "Substitute, "Magic Bus" and "My Generation." I'm not sure if I had heard "Pure and Easy" as Townshend's solo version wouldn't be release for another year. The set also included "I Don't Even Know Myself" which had been recorded as part of the "Who's Next" sessions, a long jam on "Baby' Don't You Do It" and another long jam on the unreleased "Who's Next" out take, "Water." The show closed with a long jam that begins with "Magic Bus" which morphed into "Naked Eye" and ending with a take on the classic "Road Runner."
Thanks to some bootlegs of the two nights, I can offer some insights from the band. Apparently there were many equipment problems during the two nights, though more on the rain-soaked Thursday. On the night I was there, Townshend's guitar was cutting out, most notably on "Pure & Easy" leading Daltrey to remark "Big T. Gone very quiet tonight. Got a few problems with his guitars" to which Pete replied "No trouble with the guitar. I don’t like guitars and they don’t like me." There also seemed to be a cockroach problem at the venue, with Townshend and Moon making comments and squashing bugs on stage. Pete intro to "Water:" "this one’s called ‘Water’ and it’s about a man trudging across the desert with footsteps like this, killing cockroaches!"
It was just about everything I could have hoped for. There are plenty of photographs and home-movie quality videos, some of which have been synched with audience recordings - all of which back up my memories of a spectacular evening. I remember just being overwhelmed by all aspects of the evening. On the train ride home, I remember seeing some guys attempting to put together pieces of Townshend's guitar - they obviously had better seats than I did. It was an exhausting evening, but in just a few hours I would find myself back on the train, heading into New York City and Madison Square Garden. I was going from cockroaches to Beatles.
Sunday, August 1, 1971. The Concert for Bangladesh: George Harrison & Friends. Afternoon Show.
As of 1971, though I was starting to rack up quite the concert attendance list, I had not yet seen any of the Beatles perform. I missed out on the opportunity to see them in the early sixties and they had yet to start performing as solo artists. So when it was announced that George Harrison would stage a benefit for the people of Bangladesh at Madison Square Garden, it was obvious that I would be in that building. It was billed as "George Harrison And Friends" and rumors and speculation as to who those friends would be only amped up the excitement. Now while I can remember where my seat was and so much about that show, I'm really sorry to say that I can't remember who I went with! My money would be on, again, Iain but he'll have to confirm that. Anyway, for all the concerts that I attended, and all the lines I ever waited on to get tickets to said concerts, this remains the only one that I got on line and waited overnight for. It was well worth the wait.
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| My actual ticket stub. $5.50! |
I attended the afternoon show, which had a start time of 2:30. So it was a pretty quick turnaround from the night before and I'm sure that my ears were still ringing from The 'Oo sonic assault as we jumped back on the train to the Garden. To say that the air was electric is a massive understatement. The show started and there he was - Beatle George - coming out to introduce the first group of friends, an group of Indian musicians led by sitar master Ravi Shankar. George asked the crowd to "try and get into it" and for the next 45 minutes or so, they mostly did, occasionally giving bursts of applause usually directed toward the dynamic tabla playing of All Rakha. But we were all collectively bursting in anticipation of who the rest of George's friends would be.
And then, after a short film educating us about the situation in Bangladesh, there they were.
Eric Clapton! Ringo! Leon Russell! Billy Preston! Klaus Voorman! Jim Keltner and 18 other musicians including the members of Badfinger. I was already well on my way to becoming a huge fan of Phil Spector and a fan of his work on Harrison's "All Things Must Pass" so it was obvious to me that even though I couldn't see him, based on the instrumentation on stage - two drummers, multiple acoustic guitars - that Phil was somewhere in the room. The band kicked in to "Wah-Wah" and we had lift-off! Keep in mind that this show was the first of it's kind - a super star gathering - half of The Beatles were right there! I realize that the depth of the talent has been eclipsed by benefit shows and festivals to come, but in this moment it was a 16-year old rock and roll fan's dream come true.
No doubt you've seen the movie or heard the LP. The performances were magical. Billy Preston rising up from his seat behind the organ to take us all to church on "That's The Way God Planned It." Leon Russell cementing his legend status with the medley of "Jumping Jack Flash/Youngblood." Ringo almost stealing the show with "It Don't Come Easy." But the highlight for me was Harrison and Clapton's massive guitar duel on "While My Guitar Gently Weeps." I read afterwards that Eric was very "sick" that night, but whatever was driving him, took us all on a wild ride. It is the version that I saw that made it to the album and the movie.
How could this show be any better? Well, Harrison, who just had finished an acoustic version of "Here Comes The Sun" strapped on his Stratocaster and looked down at the set list he had taped to the guitar and saw that he had written "Bob?." He turned around to see Dylan coming on stage, shades on and arms pumping to the astonished cheers of the crowd. Harrison later said that it wasn't until that moment that he knew it was actually happening. And just like that, I saw my first of many performances by Bob Dylan, a five song set that I will never forget. Except of course, who shared in this magical moment with me.
Then the band came back out for three more songs, including his chart-topping hit "My Sweet Lord" and the song he wrote for the evening, "Bangladesh." The crowd walked out into the early New York City evening, thrilled, satisfied and exhausted. And I needed to get some rest, because I had some traveling to do the next day.
Monday, August 2, 1971. The Who, Saratoga Performing Arts Center.
Yes, my wild weekend was far from over. And, yes again, my memory somewhat fails me. We obviously drove up to Saratoga, about a four hour jaunt from the Island and while I can't commit one hundred percent to this, I'm going to say that Iain was the driver. He was a couple of years older than me and the rest of the gang and, more importantly, had a car. Needless to say, somehow, someway we made our way upstate for another go round with The Who.
Maybe it was because there were plenty of rock fans who wanted to capture a little bit of the magic that The Who brought to upstate New York a few years before at that 3-day's of peace and music thing. Maybe it was because they were the greatest fucking rock band on the planet at the time and it was a Monday night in the middle of the summer. For whatever reason, they broke the attendance record for the venue with 27,800 like minded (and similarly dressed) souls. Bonus trivia fact: the previous record was set by Chicago the year before with 22,800.
The crowd was a lot livelier than the one at Saturday's show at Forest Hills, probably due to the fact that it was nowhere near as hot and muggy. And they seemed to be everywhere - and I mean everywhere, hanging off the rafters, filling the aisles. We had lawn seats and I was just glad to be there. They had a pretty good "closed circuit TV system" as they referred to it at the time and the actual sight line wasn't too bad. Mylon opened the show - the band named after it's singer, Mylon LeFevre, who not only had written a song for Elvis and was a member of The Stamps, but was gaining some rock star cred of his own, recently recording an album produced by Ten Years After's Alvin Lee and recorded at George Harrison's studio with a who's who of early seventies rockstars backing him - Ron Wood, Steve Winwood, Jim Capaldi and Mick Fleetwood. The crowd mostly hung in there with him, but it was obvious who they were there for.
The set was identical to the one on Thursday and, if this was possible, they were even louder. The building was actually vibrating. Again there were equipment problems and Daltrey seemed to be having a bad time. In fact, at one point he seemed to attempt to push a column of PA speakers off to the side before thinking better of it. The show ended with 27,800 stoned and deafened Who fans trying to make their way back to wherever they came from. I remember climbing a fence and I think I made it. I'm not sure if we slept in the car or drove back home. Another trivia fact: the next night the venue hosted the season opener of the Philadelphia Orchestra who performed works by Franz Liszt, who Roger Daltrey would later portray in the Ken Russel film, "Lisztomania."
And there you have it. 3 nights - well, two nights and an afternoon - of full tilt, glorious early seventies rock and roll at it's finest. Of all the shows that have came since, I can truly say that I never had another experience like it.
Long Live Rock!
