Did You Go To Concerts In The 60s/70s?

Yes, from 1972 on ...

 

The 60's and 70's imo was/were not a uniform experience in terms of concert going. My own experiences were entirely NE US, mostly Jersey and NYC, with Newport, college upstate, NY metro area.

In terms of time my first big one was The Beatles, and while very exciting, it was also a great deal of girls screaming. But that was a huge venue. Smaller venues the whole feeling was different. But then unlike now there were also a lot of midsize to large venues, seeing acts like The Stones, Animals, Temptations, Mitch Ryder. I don't remember bad sound, just audiences totally into the music, and performances that bordered on the anarchic for seeming not that organized. Moving to NYC in late 68 meant the occasional concert at the new MSG, which seemed quite large, but actually had good sound for bands like The Doors and Jimi Hendrix.* But we also could go to smaller venues like The Fillmore East (The Dead, Led Zeppelin), Capitol Theater in Port Chester. Gaelic Park in the Bronx was a very good outdoor venue, seeing the Airplane there. That was definitely a communal, hippie type vibe. Also went to the Newport jazz 69 festival, which was pretty lawless, getting in when the wall was knocked down, and we slept in some unfinished construction site. (Ten Years After, Jethro Tull, Jeff Beck Group, Miles Davis, Mothers of Invention, Tal Farlow were the highlights).

My college had their own concerts and they were actually pretty cool, like Hot Tuna, Charlie Daniels, NRBQ. And some gigs at Nassau Coliseum like Mothers and John McLaughlin.

After college it was pretty much all NYC, so in the late seventies that meant the growing punk scene, more club oriented with occasional mid size venues for bands like Blondie, the Pretenders. CBGB's had the B-52's, Pere Ubu. Club 57, Danceteria, the Mudd Club. They also had gigs in Central Park, from Talking Heads to Emmylou Harris, the pre Nicks/Buckingham Fleetwood Mac. Probably the best produced concert from this period was Linda Ronstadt in 77 at Radio City. Very appreciative audience!

The size and type of the venues very much affected the experience. I would guess if in the late seventies I had kept seeing big acts at the Garden it might have been somewhat different. But for the most part I don't remember a lot of assholish behavior, instead it was more people into the music. You might think the fans following this band or that might be different, as some have said here. But seeing Blondie 6 or 7 years after the Airplane, yeah the clothes were different, but the audience behavior was not that different. There for the music, not a lot of talking, no cell phones. The girls always looked hot. I didn't follow prog bands like Crimson, which I take it were much more young men that a mix of the sexes. So my experience may not have been all that typical, at least at certain times.

Today I pretty much limit concerts to smaller venues, not having been to the Garden since Alice in Chains about 7 years ago. The gigs are performed well, but there's not the edge to things that concerts had back in the day.


* The Hendrix show was a bit annoying since MSG used a rotating circular stage.

 

The price to see my music heroes in the 60's and 70's ...made the big difference to me. Still does.

I didn't feel like I was getting scammed. Five or six bucks to see Cream, Jefferson Airplane. Led Zeppelin (at the student union) in the late 60's Energetic live performances when I didn't get the feeling that everyone was jaded by money and fame. Springsteen, Bread, Jerry Jeff Walker in the early 70's for under $10, and small venues before big hits like "Born To Run" made them a superstar. Yeah, sweet smoke did fill the air...that was a perk.

Really no different now (but no smokin' allowed of course). I still won't pay what is equal to a new car payment just to see a band or artist. I still choose wisely to see my faves at small venues - under $30...Tom Rush, Jess Colin Young, Jim Messina. John Gorka, Ellis Paul, Peter Gallway. And the experience is quite rewarding with the small venue of usually less than 200 people making it seem like the artist is singing to us, not a huge faceless building.

And no huge mega TV screens behind the band just so we can see who those ant-sized performers are. Still getting the pleasure I expect from a live performance...and lovin' it.

 

A few(Allman Brothers, local shows in the 60's...I was a pre-teen), tons in the 70's(everybody from the Clash to Zeppelin, Stones to Stiff Little Fingers). The 60's and early/mid 70's shows were big concerts, smoke of all kinds filled, very colorful people, seats normally far away, everything just a blur...the late 70's were smaller, higher energy, people there more for the music, very loud, very high energy.

 

Getting to this late.. most observations have been mentioned.
My first concert was 1966 or '67 at the Hollywood Bowl seeing
Dick Dale & Deltones w/ Gary Lewis & The Playboys. Quite bizarre
as Gilligan and the Skipper were there too.. Missed The Beatles., too
young I was told. Met The Doors outside the Civic Arena in Pgh, PA
following the afternoon soundcheck in '70 .. wasn't allowed to go to the gig.
By 1972 I was going to see everybody I could

 

Living in Fort Lauderdale, I never have attended a concert in Palm Beach County, Except, I saw the Bond at the Carefree Theater in Lake Worth several years back.

Spent one day at the Miami at the Miami Pop Festival (December 1968), at Gulfstream Park.

Saw other concerts in Miami and Miami Beach and in the Grove.

Pirates World was my favorite venue. It was open air so there was no issues with acoustics like there was at most indoor venues of the time.

My first concert there was Grand Funk Railroad, back when I was sixteen. Saw the MC-5 concert there. They had some opening act by the name of Alice Cooper.



Your ticket got you into the Theme park and then to the concert afterward. By the time that the concert was open, the park was closed.

All of my concert experience were very calm and peaceful, not at all like those that some here are describing.

Look back at Woodstock. There is plenty of documentation on film, you never saw or heard about any fighting.

Different mindset back then. Different world back then.

 

Lost it all.. wrote too much and it timed out.
Not going through all that again.. lucky you.

 

Very cool! I have an unused ticket from the '71 Grand Funk show as well as Rare Earth & Blues Image '70. Check out some of the pictures at photographer Larry Singer's website, I'll bet they'll stir up a memory or two for you if you haven't seen them already: Legends of Rock & Roll - larrysinger

 

I went mostly in the mid-late 70s, and occasionally now. Some big differences that come to mind:

1. Virtually all concert venues in the 70s were filled with a big cloud of smoke that hovered over our heads. All I get now is the occasional whiff of someone smoking nearby, but not very common. This practice was also very communal at the time, where sharing was encouraged.
2. The age of the audience members has gone up, obviously, with 20-somethings making up the bulk of the crowd then, and 60-70+ years olds now. Granted, this is due primarily to the genre and age of the artist I go to see. Interestingly though, there are still young (and very young) people scattered through the crowd these days for these older acts. But that is usually when it is a legendary artist performing, like McCartney or the Stones, etc.
3. There used to be a lot of pyrotechnics (explosions, smoke/dry ice, lasers, etc.) that went along with rock shows, and not just Kiss and really bombastic artists like that. I vividly remember the Doobie Brothers making good used of an explosion, on Without You, I think.
4. Technology today has enabled large screen projections, whereas back then there was more of a reliance on the light show and/or effects mentioned above for visuals. Pink Floyd during their Animals tour of course had an inflatable pig flying around, but also projected cool animation, similar to that which was used for The Wall, with kids falling into the meat grinder and so on.
5. Price has multiplied ridiculously over the years (thanks in large part to the Eagles, who I believe began the $100 per picket trend). Tickets back then were under $10. I think I bought 3rd row orchestra seats to Led Zeppelin in '77 from a scalper for $30, believe it or not. Now I pay that much just to park my car.
6. Long self-indulgent guitar and drum solos were big at the time. Not so much today, even for the official "guitar gods."
7. Glitzy outfits and bare chests were all the rage in the 70s, especially with the British groups. Punk and grunge put a stop to that. Now I guess it's supposed to be cool to just show up in your street clothes.

 

I was at that Hendrix concert, and I would not describe the sound as good. There was no house PA. All the sound eminated from the band's backline of big Marshall stacks with a couple of PA towers on the sides of the stage for the vocal mikes and, IIRC, the drums.
Madison Square Garden is an oval-shaped arena, and they used a rotating stage so they could sell all the seats without any fans being behind the group. As the stage rotated at one RPM, the sound would swirl around the cavernous space with a Doppler effect, going away and coming back as the stage turned, since all the amps faced one way (forward). It was a circus.

 

To be fair $10 in 1972 is $60 today... So really tickets at the big shows have about doubled but record sales have evaporated.

 

That's a name from the past. I believe that I used to know Larry Singer years back.

I was at the Rare Earth & Blues Image '70 concert.

Rare Earth kicked butt that night and they were the lead-in act.

 

I didn't but this is what I would imagine a great 70's concert was like:

 

It’s the amount of pot that will fit level in a tobacco tin lid. Less than an ounce and cheaper.

 

MortSahlFan...by the way I saw Mort Sahl in 1971. Maybe $5.

The band that was supposed to play (I can't even remember who) our small university venue was cancelled so they somehow got Mort. He wasn't even on the bill and he just showed up for the show. Lucky he was even in town. That took guts--he was a trooper! Was a bit pissed off initially but, pretty quickly softened to the idea and it was a really enjoyable show by a master comedian.

Mort was always ON.

 

A baggie with that amount was called a lid. Or at least around here it was.

Seven, eight, nine up to twelve dollars depending what is was (or what someone said it was) and who was selling.

 

I get your point, but at the Fillmore East, tickets were $6.50 and $5.50, not $10. While that was the 60's, I have a ticket stub for Blondie at the Palladium in NYC for a show on May 4, 1978. Price was $8.50.

It wasn't only concerts. An upper box seat for a Yankees game in 1977 was $6.

 

While most ticket prices were $4 t0 $6 or so, CSNY charged $8.50 in '74. Neil included a rant about it by some guy in Journey Through The Past.

 

This is Hilarious ! brilliant ! thankyou lol

Awesome post in general & a fantastic list , would have loved to have seen zepp (ideally in 73 )
along with Floyd & Queen

 

You got the thread title right - they were called concerts, not gigs, at least not in my experience. Concert tickets would often say "No photography." Not much in the way of merchandise available; the only thing I remember buying at a concert was a poster.

 

A "gig" is what the performers have, not the audience; it's a job. The audience sees a "concert" or a "show"; that is not a job.

 

I got a few puke flecks from behind when I took my son to see Pearl Jam a few years ago at an outdoor show in Virginia.

 

Went to concerts from 1968 on. The thing I noticed most was that they kept getting more "slick" and "letter-perfect" at the expense of creative spontaneity. I gave up when putting on a perfect, note-for-note performance became more important than the soul of the music.

 

I dunno - I go to so many concerts that my friends refer to my concert travels as "business trips"!

 

Nice work, if you can get it!