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

Just remembered this one: Halloween Night 1969. Josefus, ZZ Top, and Grand Funk Railroad for $2. The venue was the Arena Theater in Houston, which had a rotating stage. None of their respective debut albums had been released. ZZ Top's first single, Salt Link, was released on a local label. As I recall, all three had killer sets. I liked Josefus the best, but bought GFR's first album when it came out shortly thereafter.

Fast forward to a Halloween night in the mid 2000s, and I say Josefus again. The lead singer and I chatted briefly about the '69 concert

 

awesome isnt it ! hard to believe thats stuffy old England lol
Thats the first glastonbury - still going strong 48 yrs on !

 

Started going mid/late 70's and saw a bunch of bands at their prime, at least in my opinion

Cheap Trick--supporting tour for In Color
Styx---supporting tour for Grand Illusion\
Rush...supporting tour for Hemispheres
Police---lst US tour in support of their lst release
New England...support of the first release

ahh, those were the days of $6 tics.....

 

Yep, I read it here on SHMF. Can't remember the thread.

 

That's a good point. I haven't been to a Jethro Tull show since around 2005, but they were getting so tangled up in pseudo jazzy arrangements, that it just became boring.

 

Yes, First was in 1965.

 

I saw Cream in '67 at Brandeis University. Tickets were 5$. There were maybe a couple hundred people there. (It must have been before the band "caught on" in the States.) The band didn't even play on a stage -- they were set up on a gymnasium floor. I stood less than 20 feet away from Clapton watching him play. Best concert of my life.

 

That show was captured on tape and is a frequently traded bootleg. It was a smokin' performance! I envy you.

 

Was too young for 1970s, but came close as I saw my first show in 1983. The culture was pretty similar at that point, I think, to the late 70s.

Things I find different to now:

- Waiting for tickets overnight, and people in the front of the line would get very nice seats.
- Scalping was illegal. No ticket brokers, at least in Mass. Any scalping was done by a shady dude in front of the venue.
- Tickets throughout the venue were mostly priced the same - maybe 2 dollars cheaper for the loges. No insanely priced platinum seats and such.
- Sound quality in many venues was very distorted, muddy, and too loud. A good sounding band (like Genesis or Grateful Dead) really stood out.
- Firecrackers were often set off during concerts.
- More dangerous atmosphere at some rock shows. A Who or Jethro Tull concert, for example, brought out some truly unsavory characters.
- People would stand on the folding chairs on the floor.
- Less security inside, fewer ushers.
- On the other hand, there were VERY aggressive "pat-downs" coming in as they looked for tape recorders, and I guess weapons/drugs, I don't know. They would cover every inch of you.
- Way more smoking (of everything.) At set break, you'd see a massive, thick cloud hanging over the arena.
- More open drug use. At my first show (Peter Gabriel) the people behind me had a sheet of tin foil and were snorting coke off of it.
- Obviously the lighters for encores as opposed to the cell phones.
- Wearing your t-shirt to school the next day was a way to show you were there. I guess it's not much different than posting a selfie.
- Rock wasn't nostalgia yet. It was still current music.
- Concessions, if there were any, were your basic hot dogs, soda, and maybe beer. As opposed to today's fairly elaborate food and drinks.
- It was harder to find out about shows. You would look in rock magazines like Rolling Stone, hear ads on the radio, or see the list of upcoming shows at your local Ticketmaster. Lots of word of mouth.
- More local shows in smaller towns as opposed to, today, bands only hitting major cities and expecting people to travel.

I'll add that when I moved to Southern California, the vibe at concerts was way more relaxed compared to East Coast.

 

Great summary. Let me ask. When I first started going to concerts I could have sworn fans would cheer and applaud at the end of the song. Now, they applaud in anticipation for the end and each song ends as the applause is already happening. Sometimes you can't hear the applause if its a big loud ending and then there's just a few seconds of leftover applause you hear after. Did they applaud after or during the final notes?

 

A few people have mentioned fire crackers let off at concerts. I can't remember it ever happening. I suppose it could have and I just don't remember.

I have no clue how I found out about concerts back in the day. Esp. the small venue ones. ?????

 

I don't remember seeing anyone lighting off firecrackers at any concert I went to. If it did ever happen, whoever was responsible would have gotten absolutely pummelled by the people around him/her/them.

 

When I was 10 years old in 1977, I used to call the local arena 1-2 times a week to ask if Wings or Kiss would play there soon. This is before they had automated recording lines, so I always got an operator.

Eventually she said yes to Kiss! Wings/Macca played that venue in 1976 but never again - Macca did stadiums when he next came back to DC in 1990 and by the time he did arenas again in 2002, the Cap Centre was toast!

Other than pestering local arenas, I remember some radio stations had "hotlines" in the early 80s that told us of new shows.

Otherwise, you just had to listen to the radio to hear notifications or see ads in the newspaper!

 

Radio, postings at record stores, the Calendar section of the L.A. Times, a few "underground" newspapers, word of mouth.

 

Probably well over a hundred in the 60s and 70s...I probably saw Doug Sahm alone (and with different bands) play more than thirty times back then.
Everybody else Tanya Tucker to Bubble Puppy and Albert King to The Sex Pistols. What a great time to be alive and in the right places @ the right times.

 

Nice. Any recollections of seeing Bubby Puppy live?

 

Sadly you missed the "golden age" of the Alexandria Roller Rink. Saw Tull, Yes, (Ozzie-era) Black Sabbath, The original Alice Cooper group (twice),
Yes, Humble Pie, Mitch Ryder, King Crimson etc. etc. Missed out on The Doors and T-Rex but I tried to get down there whenever I could...

 

Dave Fore was a good buddy, and I worked with a woman who was in L-O-V-E with Rod Prince.
When they got back together in the late 70s (with a new bass player), they still played all of their
International Artisits material like it was 1969 all over again. Still a powerhouse group even then.

 

Ahh the good old 70’s! What a great time when seeing the icons of rock was still a huge deal!

My first two concerts were Three Dog Night and the Carpenters in 1971 in Albuquerque. I saw all my heroes in that decade.
Stones
Who
Zeppelin
Elton
And many, many others. Don’t ever remember anyone throwing firecrackers or bottles at the stage.

 

Given I don't actually like any of those bands, I'm not sad at all I missed that "golden age"!

 

Wow. That's a pretty broad range of styles and performers not to "like"! I don't particularly "like" Bruce Springsteen, but I saw him do a dynamite show back in '74.

 

I saw Blue Oyster Cult in 1973 at Wollman skating rink in Central Park and people were lobbing cherry bombs around. A year or two later at Nassau Coliseum a fire got started in the middle of the orchestra section.

 

First concert: Elton John - August 16, 1976 @ MSG in NYC, ticket price $9.50 ( lived in CT )
Last concert: Elton John - March 12, 2019 @ PNC Arena in Raleigh, ticket price $230 ( now live in NC )

Sound is way better these days. Video screens so you can see up close when you are not. Performance quality is better in my opinion since we see mostly rock veterans who now realize this is their job and they have to do it well to continue to be a draw.

People talk way more now than I remember back in the 70s. It's very annoying, did you pay good money to come and socialize with your friends? Sometimes the conversations can be very loud and distracting.

 

Actually seems like a fairly narrow range to me!

Just not artists who ever did anything for me. There are many 70s concerts I wish I could've attended, but those artists weren't among those!

 

Great thread.

One of the biggest changes from my perspective is that there seems to be very little spontaneity these days as everything has to be coordinated with the light show/computers/screens etc. It's a show not a concert. Gone are the days of showing off serious instrument virtuosity for interminable minutes - I remember my friend leaving to take a dump at the Manchester Apollo when Tony Iommi started his guitar solo and he was still playing when he returned some 20 minutes later!