Happy New Year!
What better way to rock in the year 1979 than with a Ted Nugent aural assault. The Motor City Madman cut his arena rock teeth touring with label mates Lynyrd Skynyrd, but when Skynyrd’s plane crashed in 1977, Nugent continued on as a headliner in the larger venues. Ted Nugent still rocks and hunts for his food but now is almost as famous for his conservative rants on Facebook live.
Dog Eat Dog
Rock on!
GQ
Shortly after Hot Tuna’s live album was released, we had tickets to see them perform at The Palladium when seemingly suddenly they broke up. I also saw Jorma in concert at the Palladium in April so forgive me if this story may apply to that show. Everyone was expecting long haired Jorma to perform at the Palladium so when he walked out solo acoustic with slicked back orange hair it was a bit of a shock. I later read in Rolling Stone magazine that at one of these Palladium concerts he had taken a swig from a champagne bottle that unknowingly to him had been spiked with LSD resulting in his playing the same note during a song for a half hour. Not surprisingly, I know that I had not noticed that evening.
Hesitation Blues
Rock on!
GQ
Another road trip from Queens to see Queen again at the Nassau Coliseum. Since I have gone to a few Queen concerts in my time, with Freddie Mercury and later Paul Rodgers of Bad Company fame, the Adam Lambert version of the band just does not appeal to me (although some have told me they are still very good with Lambert).
Queen was a true original act that no one has been able to duplicate or replicate for all these many years and I was fortunate to have seen the original lineup in their glory days many moons ago.
Now I’m Here
Rock on!
GQ
The Doobie Brothers were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame this year. With no live show possible, the Hall of Fame ceremony was a virtual taped HBO special and it was actually very well done. I have attended the Hall of Fame ceremony at Barclays Center in Brooklyn a couple of times and the speeches can be kind of rough (the worst being the E Street Band; the teleprompter pleading with them to keep it short was better than their endless acceptances).
Right now I have been listening to the “Southbound” collection that remakes some of their many hits with guest artists.
The 50th anniversary tour with Michael McDonald was postponed until at least next year because of the pandemic. I am holding on to my tickets for the Jones Beach Theatre in hopes that we will one day be rocking out again under the stars at the beach.
What a Fool Believes
Rock on!
GQ
The concerts are coming fast and furious in 1978 and it’s a good thing I kept an accurate log of all the shows I attended. While I know that I was there, I have no recollection of the Heart/Walter Egan concert at New York City’s Palladium.
Magic Man
Rock on!
GQ
Before Yes and Neil Young, my favorite band was Jethro Tull. The first album that I “owned” was The Beatles “Meet the Beatles” given to me by my Aunt Pat, the second was the Moody Blues “”Every Good Boy Deserves Favour” bought for me by my dad after getting clunked on the forehead by an errant shoe flying off the foot of someone ahead of me during a foot race at a Post Office picnic, but the first piece of vinyl that I purchased myself was Jethro Tull “Warchild”. The wild eyed and wild haired frontman for Jethro Tull was and is the extraordinary Ian Anderson famous for making the flute a lead instrument in a rock and roll band all the while singing and sometimes playing on one leg. While I have no specific recollection of the Tull/Uriah Heep concert, I am certain I was appropriately pumped up to see one of my musical heroes live at the venerable Madison Square Garden.
Bungle in the Jungle
Rock on!
GQ
After Neil Young & Crazy Horse headed on to the Nassau Coliseum after performing Rust Never Sleeps in Madison Square Garden for two nights, Bob Dylan with orchestra rolled into town. The tour later memorialized with the “Live at Budokan” album the following spring had received mixed reviews and reportedly at the time Neil Young was annoyed that the Rust tour was being lauded while Bob Dylan’s tour was not.
I do recall doing my wandering act trying to move up front in the orchestra with little success and seeing Dylan on stage but not much else.
This was quite a week in 1978 seeing two all time legends at the World’s Most Famous Arena.
Blowing in the Wind
Rock on!
GQ
I was in my first month of attending Queens College when Neil Young & Crazy Horse performed the first of the two now legendary “Rust Never Sleeps” concerts at MSG the night before. Some friends told me that I must not miss this concert,, and although I was already going to the second night at Madison Square Garden, the word of mouth reviews just heightened my anticipation for these upcoming shows. I cannot remember what kind of seat I had in hand for the second MSG concert but while hanging outside the Garden before the show a scalper was selling a fifth row dead center orchestra seat for thirty bucks. Now it seems like a no-brainer but at the time thirty dollars was a weeks pay in my part time job world. After some internal trepidation, I decided to buy the ticket; needless to say it was the best seat I had sat in up until that point. The “Rust Never Sleeps” tour was groundbreaking in so many ways but seeing the stage set up for the very first time was jaw dropping. My first of now close to 100 Neil Young concerts was one of the great tours in the history of rock and roll.
The only recollection of the Nassau Coliseum “Rust Never Sleeps” show is while on the move trying to get a good seat in the orchestra, I walked in front of the first row (yes kids, you could walk in front of the first row orchestra seats in 1978) and while security tried to clear the walkway, I looked up to see Neil at the edge of the stage looking down singing “I Am a Child”. The groundbreaking “Rust Never Sleeps” tour helped to transform the arena rock concert experience and opened a world of creative possibilities for years to come.
A Day in the Life
Rock on!
GQ
After the successful return with Rick Waksman for the “Going for the One“ tour, Yes returned with “Tormato” in the round. Yes was the perfect band to tour arenas on a rotating tage as every member of the band was a virtuoso performer worthy of fixating on at any point of a Yes concert and every seat was now a good one. Joe Fisk, Steve Schaefer and I were huge Yes fans and we collectively agreed that this would be a great time for our first tock and roll toad trip. I do not remember how we managed to pull it off but we had really good seats in the orchestra for at least a few of these shows back before anyone had thought to institute tiered pricing and when ticket prices for any given concert were uniform throughout a venue. In Springfield we were looking for a bar that afternoon and found ourselves outside of an unassuming nondescript brick building. On the outside it looked like a dive bar, perfect for us, but when we went inside we found that it was rather nice, almost too nice, considering the uninviting exterior. It turned out we three 18 year old rock fans from New York had innocently wondered into a Springfield gay bar. As I recall I think it was pretty empty this particular afternoon and we may have stayed for a beer, It was a learning experience; looks can be deceiving and in 1978 the bars and clubs frequented by the gay community were sometimes nondescript so as to keep a low profile in their sometimes intolerant communities.
I think it was at the New Haven Coliseum the next day that we arrived at the arena early in the afternoon and we heard Yes rehearsing on stage from the lobby. Unbelievably somehow we could peer through and actually saw Yes in civilian clothes playing “Arriving U.F.O.”, a song that I fo not think ever made the set list.
As we sat in front for some of these gigs, at some point in all this we sort of made acquaintance with Claude who took care of Steve Howe’s guitar equipment. Years later the movie “Almost Famous” would capture some of the essence to our own personal adventure. In true rock star fashion, while we were still hanging out outside the New Haven venue we saw Claude walking up from a truck entrance sporting a girl on both arms. Since he had no choice but to acknowledge us At some point as we would shout out to him as he performed his pre-show rituals, Claude gave us a back stage pass to I think one of the Madison Square Garden concerts where I exuberantly interrupted Alan White’s conversation with a rich looking couple so I could tell him that I saw the show in Springfield. Alan had a deer in headlight look and I quickly moved on. The Madison Square Garden shows are all a blur at this point but it was one of the MSG in the round concerts where I leapt over the short wall into the orchestra with security guards at my heals. I dashed across the back of the Garden orchestra, hopped the wall on the opposite side and ducked into a restroom. Unfortunately I had managed to tick off The head of security supervisor during my attempt to move upfront so they did not give up so easily and located me in a bathroom stall unsuccessfully trying to wait them out. Some may think rock and roll is a spectator enterprise but I prefer to think of it as a contact sport. The adrenaline rush when hundreds of thousands of fans congregate to experience their favorite performers play music that matters to them is unparalleled and requires audience participation to fully engage. The communal rights of passage of tock and roll are as important as any lessons learned in a school and create memories and bonds that last a lifetime.
Close to the Edge
Rock on!
GQ
Ritchie Blackmore s Rainbow, with the great Ronnie James Dio on vocals, played New York City’s Palladium with the now legendary AC/DC opening.
AC/DC with the Young brothers on guitars and Bon Scott on vocals obliterated the theatre with their high voltage rock and roll. Bon Scott tragically passed away in 1980 but the band achieved even greater heights in years to come (to include what might have turned out to be a final tour with Axel Rose on vocals).
Rainbow took the stage with a giant neon rainbow overhead that ran the length of the stage that changed colors flickering throughout the first song to nice effect. The dynamic Dio demanded the rabid audience’s attention. Ritchie Blackmore played guitar for what would turn out to be the only time I would see him perform and before he went medieval. After a song, maybe mid-two, the band unexpectedly left the stage. After what seemed like a lengthy delay, it was announced that due to technical issues the concert was canceled and you could get refunds at place of purchase. The story we heard was the perfectionist Blackmore heard a buzzing in a speaker and the show would not go on. This was not the news anyone wanted to hear and honestly the band was so loud that this “buzz” was unnoticeable to us, but in the end we got to see AC/DC and a glimmer of Rainbow for free.
Refunds are few and far between as no one wants to return money. The last time this happened to me was at a Marylin Manson show at Jones Beach when an unrelenting summer lightening storm came through making an outdoor show that night unsafe. Rainbow would later change members and had some success, Ronnie James Dio would have a successful solo career and later join Black Sabbath, and AC/DC would overcome tragedy and become stadium headliners.
It’s a Long Way to the Top
if You Want to Rock and Roll
Rock on!
GQ