1974-04-22 Grand Funk Railroad / Suzi Quatro

Madison Square Garden

I went to my first rock show with a friend, accompanied by his father, after begging our parents for awhile. We watched Suzy Quatro prance in front of screaming fans in her high heeled space suit while my friend’s dad in his business suit looked on, unimpressed.

At some later point in time, I better understood what Elton John’s “Benny and the Jets” was all about, and it forever reminded me of my first rock show. Suzi Quatro did have electric boots, ya know.

The Rolling Stone Encyclopedia of Rock & Roll (Fireside edition, 2005) calls Grand Funk Railroad the most commercially successful heavy-metal band of that era (the first half of the 70s); the band compiled 11 gold or platinum albums and sold 20 million albums overall, earning its success through extensive touring. Produced by Todd Rundgren, their big hit album “We’re an American Band” had come out the year before this show, with the title track becoming a #1 hit record on AM radio. Rolling Stone‘s summary also notes that in 1971 Grand Funk played in a venue near and dear to me which (by that time) I had been to several times - Shea Stadium. The tickets for that 2 day run supposedly broke the Beatles’ record for ticket sales at Shea.

1974-09-08 Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young / Beach Boys / Joni Mitchell

Roosevelt Raceway

The first concert my folks let me attend (along with two friends) without "parental supervision."  This was a huge, heavily anticipated "summer's end" show that went on from the morning through way into the night.  CSNY's final American appearance on their big 1974 tour, they were on stage for over 5 hours and played 32 songs.  Joni Mitchell joined them after playing during the day.

We dared walk up near the very front during the Beach Boys set that afternoon, and some drunk dudes yelled and threw beer cans in our direction. So we deemed it best to watch the rest of the sets from further back on the left side.

Wikipedia has this statement under its "Roosevelt Raceway" page: "The property was utilized by several organizations for other events. The most notable event was a rock concert; "Summersault '74", which drew a crowd of 75,000 (and featured performances by Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, Joni Mitchell, Jesse Colin Young, and the Beach Boys)."

1975-02-24 Rod Stewart & Faces / Blue Oyster Cult

Madison Square Garden

Rod Stewart & Faces at Madison Square Garden, 2/24/1975. In view here, Ronnie, Rod and Mac.

The Faces playing at MSG in front of a wall of Ampeg amps, similar to what the Stones’ 1975 tour set-up would look like.

Ian McLagan looked kind of small sitting at his Steinway Concert Grand. Mac apparently couldn't get a clavinet in white to match the Hammond case, the Steinway and the candles. Kenny Jones is playing his plaid drum set on the riser.

Rod and Ronnie singing together as Mac plays by candlelight. MSG 2/24/1975.

I had listened to many of the earlier Rod Stewart and Faces albums and singles .... I bought the "Coast to Coast" live album after reading a review in Circus magazine in 1974.  I saw them appear on "Don Kirshner's Rock Concert"  and "In Concert" on TV - these shows featured the hot bands in the early 70s - and I taped a radio broadcast (on the King Biscuit radio show) featuring "Twisting the Night Away" and “Sweet Little Rock and Roller" from one recent show.  The Faces were really big at the time and I looked forward to this day intensely for many months - it would be my first trip to the Garden in the big City without parental supervision.  A winter rain fell as we got there and went outside from Penn Station. I had brought my camera and telephoto lense with me, and don’t recall any problem getting them in.

In later years I would see both Ronnie Wood and Ian McLagan, who were then members of the Faces, play with the Rolling Stones, and would see Kenny Jones with the Who. 

Mac, 2 candles, an ashtray on a white Steinway concert grand, and Rod in satin with his mic stand. Rod Stewart & Faces at MSG, 2/24/74

And not to forget Blue Oyster Cult, I did get some photos of them with the dry ice smoke machines in full operation.. Much later on Will Farrow would play the cowbell to "Don't Fear the Reaper" on SNL. But even better, I would catch Dave Matthews Band when they played a version of the song at the 2011 DMB Caravan shows, with Tim Reynolds killing it on the guitar solo.

I shot some of these photos from the far side of MSG with my 200mm telephoto lense, shooting Kodak Tri-X film that I developed at home.

Blue Oyster Cult with the smoke machine going.

---

Below: Tour Program:

1975-04-26 Lou Reed

Felt Forum

This show was part of Lou Reed's 1975 world tour, the year after Reed's classic Rock n' Roll Animal live album came out.  Glam rock / glitter rock was all the rage in the early 70s - Jagger, Bowie, Lou Reed, Mott the Hoople and Slade were all part of that, and what I got into early on.

In later years I saw Lou Reed appear as a surprise guest at a show at the Bottom Line, and in a more recent year I found myself alone with him in the lobby of the Film Forum one evening while he was waiting for his wife Laurie Anderson to see a foreign film.  I said hello, not realizing how limited his remaining days would be. 

He passed away on a day that I attended a Phish show in Hartford.  Phish asked for a moment of silence for him, Trey referred to him as one of the greatest artists ever, and they opened the show with Reed's “Rock n' Roll” in tribute.  REM is another great live band that I’ve seen cover songs by Reed and Velvet Underground.

These color photos were all taken on Kodak Ektachrome slide film, with the ISO “pushed” several stops in accordance with the film instructions, for the indoor stage lights. The Felt Forum was an especially dark stage and real test for a film camera without flash.

1975-06-23 The Rolling Stones

Madison Square Garden

I got home from Jr High School one afternoon and started listening to my favorite local radio station, WLIR.  The Stones announced the 1975 Tour of the Americas - with tickets going on sale that same day. 

I listened live on the radio when  the Stones came out on a flatbed truck on Fifth Avenue at lunchtime to play a version of Brown Sugar to startled businesspeople on their lunch hour, and kick off the tour. 

I waited impatiently for my Mom to get home so that I could ask her to drive me to get tickets - the closest ticketmaster outlet being at a record store in Lynbrook, NY called Frog's.  She took me over there around 2.30pm and already the line wrapped around several blocks.  I stayed on line into the evening (she left and came back later) and I finally purchased two tickets at around 10.30pm. There was nothing left except the highest sections of the Garden but I was still totally excited. I was 14 years old and knew I would be going to see the greatest rock band in the world, at Madison Square Garden. 

On this tour Ronnie Wood joined for the first time (I had seen him already with Faces);  the flower pedal stage was used - it opened at the beginning (to the opening bars of Honky Tonk Woman) to reveal Mick and the Stones inside, before Jagger rolled down the front pedal as it slowly opened further; the inflatable fallic balloon made an appearance during Star Star. The incomparable Billy Preston played keyboards. Later in the show when the band was revving on all cylinders, during Brown Sugar and Jumpin Jack Flash they simply turned on all of the house lights as everyone went bonkers.

Below: Creem magazine article on the 1975 Tour, click arrows to browse pages.

1975-07-25 Arlo Guthrie

Central Park

There were many great shows in Central Park in those days, and I made it to a few.

For a teenager from Long Island, it was definitely a blast to get into the city by train, head up to the deli on Sixth Avenue near the lower entrances to the park where you could buy a beer in a paper bag, and then go right into the park for the show.  There were many good spots to see some of it and hear all of it right there in the park if you were inclined to save the money on a ticket and sit outside the main venue.

1975-10-12 Peter Frampton / Rod Stewart & Faces

Nassau Coliseum

I saw both these bands two times during my high school days, and it was amazing that they did this show at Nassau Coliseum together.  The Frampton shows preceded the big commercial success of his classic live album, which came out only a few months after this show.  The most recent "Frampton" studio album at the time, for me, was one of those classic 1970s albums that just worked so well as a collection of great songs; and Frampton was getting heavily popular on the success of that album. 

Peter Frampton tells the interesting story of the famous 1954 custom Les Paul which he used for his classic sound here.

(Text continues below.)

Peter Frampton wailing on his "Phenix" 1954 Les Paul Custom at Nassau Coliseum, 10-12-75

It seemed almost too coincidental when I first saw the live album in a NYC record store one day in early 1976, because I had seen two of his shows in the last few months... so I bought that album right when it came out - I was a huge fan already but didn't realize how popular the album would make him - and how it would became something like a gold standard for live rock albums.  “Frampton Comes Alive” became a monster success and elevated Frampton to the heights of pop stardom.

I took photos of both the Faces and Frampton with my Kodak Tri-X negative film.  I purchased the film in bulk, loaded it into reuseable film cartridges, and developed it myself in the dark room I had at home.  These images are scanned from my original negatives.

Rod and Ronnie, 1975

Tour Program cover.

Ronnie Wood with Faces at Nassau Coliseum, 10-12-1975

Rod always had the mic stand going in one direction or another.

---

Frampton rocking it with his band, 10/12/1975

Frampton soloing, from behind the stage, 10/12/1975

1975-11-21 Peter Frampton / Dave Mason

Madison Square Garden

Dave Mason opened this show, and we walked in to see the stage with an elaborate set incorporating themes from his latest album, Split Coconut.  But, at the time, I had little familiarity with Mason; it was only later that I became a big fan of Traffic.

My friends and I were there mainly to see the headliner, Peter Frampton, for the second time that fall, coming close on the heels of the Nassau Coliseum show.

1976-03-27 Kingfish

Calderone Concert Hall

On 3/27/76 there were two Kingfish shows at the Calderone; I went to the early show.  This was the first time I saw a member of the Grateful Dead perform, as Bob Weir had been a regular member of Kingfish from its inception.  In another few days I would see the Jerry Garcia Band at the same venue.  Although Bob Weir was only 27 at the time of this show, at that moment the future of the Grateful Dead as a touring band wasn't something anyone could be certain of. The Calderone was a small venue, and I was so excited to see Bobby up close, and to hear them do a version of Minglewood as an encore.

I taped the first Kingfish album when it was played on the radio at the time of its initial release in 1975. From that time - and when I later got another show from the radio (broadcast from My Fathers Place - this band made a huge impression.  The combination of Dave Torbert, a wonderful musician, writer and vocalist, with Weir and with Robby Hodinott and Matthew Kelly made this a very hot band - energetic, upbeat, and fresh sounding.

The 11-18-75 late show of Kingfish at My Father's Place was broadcast on the radio.  That soon became a fav in my tape collection. 

1976-03-30 Jerry Garcia Band

Calderone Concert Hall

This was my first Garcia Band show.  My first Grateful Dead show came only a couple of months later.

Its kind of mindblowing to think that Garcia played at places like this, or like Bailey Hall at Cornell and in the Ithaca College Gym, in 75 and 76.  Perhaps hearing about that Ithaca show and other great Ithaca shows factored into my decision to go to school there in 1978.  In any event, I am grateful to have seen Jerry at theaters like the Calderone, the Palladium, and the Landmark in Syracuse. 

1976-06-14 The Grateful Dead

Beacon Theatre

I had joined the Deadhead fan club at some point before the 1976 tour was announced.  (Similar to how Denis McNally talks about it, I had a "skull and roses" album on vinyl, and I had written to the address printed inside that album.) 

Through their newsletters the Dead expressed a frustration with being forced by their own success into having to play large arenas where the sound was compromised. The amazing but impractical “wall of sound” they had used before their break had been retired.  The GD had been on a hiatus but had released the "Blues for Allah" album, and the landmark 1975 show at the Great American Music Hall in SF had been broadcast on the radio which gave fans a chance to hear them in newly polished form. (One of my first and best loved tapes at that point, the SF show later became the first "From the Vault" release.) 

The Dead were saying they wanted to do a tour where fans would again have a chance to see them in venues with good acoustics. Phil Lesh was quoted in one newsletter saying they wanted to "get the Mother rolling one more time." So I put in for tickets through the fan club and received a pair of tickets to both Beacon shows just as I had requested.  It seemed to me at the time there was no other practical way to have gotten tickets to these shows.  But I did have High School final exams during the week of the shows and I gave one pair (for the second show) to a friend.

I came to the show with friends from Long Island and took the subway up to the west 72nd street station for the first time.  When we came out the subway we saw the whole scene of hippies, tour buses and people who were begging for tickets, implanted there on Broadway.  Inside the Beacon, it was smokey and dirty, with people sitting on the stairs and the floor all over the place.  This was way before the Beacon was renovated and it was an old theater that showed its age.

People walked in, saw the set up, and yelled in excitement seeing double drum sets up on the stage for the first time on the east coast since 1971. Sitting in my seat in the rear half of the Orchestra before the show I was astonished to see a dude jump down from the balcony down to the orchestra, just in front of us. He landed safely in the still sparcely filled seats underneath the overhang, and then scampered up toward the stage.  There was no problem moving around after the show started and I moved into the aisle, getting up very close during both the first and second sets.  I was standing directly below Donna by the time she approached the mic during Music Never Stopped to sing "There's a band out on the highway..."

It was great being able to see them all so close - Bobby rocking and getting the audience up, looking up at the balcony as he pushed the band through the second set through Around and Around.

The recent versions of the soundboard tapes of this show are super great and sound almost like a studio recording in some sections, with both drummers especially clear and prominent. Keith Godchaux’s piano shines throughout. Much more depth in the recordings than my earlier soundboard copies, and without the sort of wooshing or warbling that negatively categorized some of the earlier generations of tapes.

The Deadbase review notes the second set’s unusual mix of tunes and the unusual space break in Help on the Way (actually its Slipknot, clocking in at over 13 minutes). The Lazy Lightning ] Supplication combo that opened the Kingfish studio album and which was part of my Kingfish experience the previous year was now pulled into the GD repetoire, as they focused on the tunes of more recent vintage. Blues for Allah had been the first studio album to come out after I was already into the Dead, and the focus here on those songs, including Crazy Fingers, made this show especially memorable for that.

1976-07-[01] Elvin Bishop

Disneyland

No kidding, I saw the Elvin Bishop Group play at a bandshell in Disneyland. The exact date is uncertain but definitely July or early August. Unexpected, just happened to be in Disneyland. At the time I was probably thinking I’d rather be at a Grateful Dead concert, but I didn’t realize that Elvin Bishop had actually played with the Dead in 1969.

1976-08-25 Jeff Beck and Jan Hammer / Jefferson Starship

Nassau Coliseum

It was mindblowing to see these two bands on the same night.  Jeff Beck and Jan Hammer were an incredible opener, and the Starship just poured it on at this show.  The Starship setlist is posted on setlists.fm but is not complete and doesn't include the encores.  Online I couldn’t find anything for the performance by Jan Hammer and Jeff Beck (other than that they were in the area playing in CT, according to an entry, two days before this show).

1976-09-10 The Outlaws

Central Park

Southern rock was all the rage in the late 70s….  Even in Central Park. 

1976-08-31 Johnny & Edgar Winter

Felt Forum, New York, NY

Johnny and Edgar had earned themselves a very high status among big fans of rock music.  One of my earliest guitar-playing friends just immersed himself completely in Johnny Winter when he wasn't listening to older blues men.  At least for me Edgar's early 70s albums, and his incredible keyboard playing, placed him right at the cutting edge of 70s rock. 

This show was so loud it was uncomfortable even in the lobby.

I don't remember it but I suppose Edgar played Frankenstein that night; I saw him play it more recently, and of course the Phish versions....

1977-07-01 Pink Floyd

Madison Square Garden

It was a major rock concert event when Pink Floyd toured its new Animals album in the summer of 1977, and this was performance #1 in NYC, as denoted by the stub.

During the Animals tour, Floyd played that album in its entirety, then the Wish You Were Here album in its entirety, and then a couple of Dark Side numbers for the encore . With Animals, the order didn’t follow the album; the show began with a jaw-dropping rendition of "Sheep," followed by Pigs on the Wing Part 1. During the guitar-chord sequence out of Sheep, what appeared to be giant sheets streamed down behind the band, in sync with the jamming guitar chords ... an opener one could not easily forget! (As noted in the next post there’s now a good quality audience recording of N2 posted online, the Animals set ripping with intensity.)

The classic Fender Rhodes electric piano intro to “Sheep” by Rick Wright opened the first song and the show. At only 30 minutes in to the show, you were already blown pretty far away by the intensity of Sheep and then all of Dogs, with its rousing dueling lead guitar parts played by Gilmour and Snowy White and its swirling light show sequence at the end.

With the song Pigs, a big flying piggy was cut loose in the Garden, and Gilmour cut loose, playing blazing leads. Roger Waters pointed at the flying pig, asked the crowd whether they like his piggy, and proclaimed proudly what a big piggy it is.

On the first night I sat in section 133 of the old MSG, just above the main walkway that went all the way around the middle of the arena. In the front of those sections there was a white concrete barrier at the corners of the stairs separating the first rows of the section from the people walking on the main walkway. In those days lots of illegal fireworks were available in Chinatown in the days leading up to the 4th of July each year. People were lighting off firecrackers inside the venue, which made it a somewhat scary and tense scene, and we hoped that the concrete barriers would help shield us should anyone light off some explosive in the aisle... During the break a guy started going to the front of the sections, yelling that if he sees anyone light a firecracker he's going to beat them up. Not the most relaxing way to prepare your mind for the experience of the entire "Wish You Were Here" album coming up during the second set.

On the N2 recording you can hear how bad it was - fireworks going off during softer sections of songs, like the mellow bluesy section they added to the jam outro from Pigs. People started to boo the fireworks and culprits. But the performance still drips with intensity.

Several nights later at MSG, someone notoriously threw a firecracker or other explosive on the stage during the band's performance of "Pigs on the Wing," at which time Roger Waters stopped the band and asked the audience "Where's the stupid mother__ who just did that?" .... and these events contributed to the themes that Waters addressed in the next Pink Floyd album, The Wall.

1977-07-02 Pink Floyd

Madison Square Garden

I sat with a friend in some amazing center/left floor seats for this show, Night 2 in NYC.

Among other things, the movies during “Wish You Were Here” were especially captivating up close. Vivid recollections remain of looking up at Gilmour playing the Fender lap steel guitar while the lights flashed and smoke billowed up during the intense jam with Rick Wright’s synthesizer leads during the second part of Shine On.

Before the show I had a good look at Wright's keyboard rig. I saw he appeared to have two of the same moog synths side by side on top, and a total of 26 keyboards.

Recently a good quality audience recording of this show (called “Audiophile Edition”) was posted online. You can hear the fireworks going off as the show opens and then well into Sheep and during quiet segments of the show. Aside from that problem though, the recording is kind of, like woahhh …, freakishly, religiously incredible. Gilmour plays some of the most classic rock guitar to be found anywhere. Welcome to the (1977 time travel) machine.

1977-09-03 The Grateful Dead / NRPS / Marshall Tucker Band

Raceway Park

Much is documented in Grateful Dead history about this show so I won't repeat what is available. I still may have some news clippings to add later.

A memorable part of the show came during the Halfstep jam - during the relaxed part of that jam, a big bloody red sunset hovered in the sky to the right side of the stage, over the freight cars that had been assembled in a circle to form an outer barrier for the field.  Every time since then when I listen to that section, [7-10 minutes into Halfstep],  I can re-envision that bloody sunset.

The show was arranged at the end of the summer after the fans expressed disappointment in the inability to get tickets to the Palladium shows and other shows on the Spring leg that year.  So a half million or so were able to come see this show.  People may have forgotten who else played that day so I put them in the title of the post as well as the GD. Its hard to overstate how much country rock was the big thing at the time. Marshall Tucker, NRPS, Charlie Daniels Band, Outlaws, Skynrd, all of which focused in that genre, joining the existing ranks of rock bands like the Dead, the Allmans and Little Feat which were more broad-based but had focused in on country flavors in their cooking. And of course having NRPS on a bill with the Dead was a longstanding tradition by then.

Going to the bathroom in the back of the field area was an interesting experience, wading through the mud.  And it was a long walk back to the car afterwards... the first part of which we had the Terrapin encore accompanying us... 

We had driven down from Long Island early in the morning.  My friend picked me up before dawn and mentioned that he wasn't feeling too well.... but he was the only one of us who was already 17 and had one of those handy things called a drivers license...  He got really ill and let's just say he didn't enjoy the show too much.  He declined our offers to take him to the infirmary during the show, and just as we had planned to do, we camped-out in the field where we parked after the show and slept the night.  We learned after the fact that our driver friend had an appendicitis attack during the show.  He did ok and got us home like a trooper the next day, and we visited him in the hospital we learned how serious this was and how it could have ended much worse for him.

One of the guys with us had his Mother tape the show as it played live over FM radio. (Not an insignificant thing, as several tape flips and changes were involved in getting it on cassette in real time.)  The tape became a classic in my collection for years.  It was much later I learned about the pre-FM soundboard, which Dick Latvala spoke of early on as something that had to come out, and of course he released it as Dick’s Picks # 15.

Right: Dicks Picks #15 - Dick wrote to us from the great beyond and included this photo of Englishtown 9/3/1977.

1977-11-27 Jerry Garcia Band

The Palladium, New York, NY

I got tickets in advance for the early show, and was enjoying the new Cats Under the Stars album a lot. A very exciting show, Garcia’s Cats Under the Stars was kind of a big release and this seemed like an especially great tour to see, and it was a limited run due to the various Grateful Dead shows.  Jerry smiled big time while waving to the audience during How Sweet It Is.  Maria Muldaur joined Donna on vocals and seemed to want to dance all night. Jerry's chemistry with John Kahn was very special, and it was quite amazing to see it live.

We sat in the lower balcony, which was a great scene at the Palladium.   My first show at the Palladium, I convinced a friend to drive in from Queens and we parked on the street in the city, after the spending the day in Queens laughing our asses off to Jerry Lewis movies on TV.

Unlike the Grateful Dead tour that year, it was not difficult to get tickets. In fact, there is a page online about the shows that states that the late show did not even sell out.

1978-05-10 The Grateful Dead

New Haven Coliseum

Thankfully my folks let me take their car all the way up to New Haven while I was still in High School.  It was only my third Dead show, and interesting to compare the experience to Englishtown. Already the Dead sounded a little different than they did in 1977, a little looser and with some extra edginess in the solos, jams and drum sections. Pretty soon after the show I obtained a good audience recording, featuring Must Have Been the Roses and a stellar Eyes of the World to add to the one at Englishtown.

For a long while, and all throughout my tape trading days, I never stumbled across a soundboard copy until Dick Latvala’s copy came out as Dick’s Picks #25.

Like some of the other shows I saw in the era, it is simply amazing to be able to finally hear these shows in great quality after so many years.