In 1977 my favorite band was Yes who were touring in support of the “ Going for the One” album with keyboardist Rick Waksman back in the fold following the Patrick Moraz “Relayer” line up.

Needless to say, seeing Yes at Madison Square Garden was a huge deal for the progressive rock fans in our group. The “Yessongs” triple live album, and the accompanying movie, were landmark events for the genre. The return of the iconic line up at the World’s Most Famous Arena was a big event during what may have been a golden age of live rock and roll music.

Our seats were mid level up toward the right and the stage background resembled the “Going for the One” album cover. It certainly did not hurt that the “ Going for the One” album is one of the strongest in the band’s storied history. It was a traditional end stage set up which is an important note as the band would tour -arenas “in the round” on subsequent tours which turned out to be great because Yes the band were all such extraordinary musicians in their own right and having a different visual focal point as the stage rotated was fascinating. For the “Going for the One” tour the first thing that caught my eye was that Rick Wakeman’s hair was shorter than it was in”Yessongs” and he was not wearing one of his dramatic capes.

Jethro Tull was my favorite band, and “Warchild” was the first rock album that I purchased on my own, but then I discovered Yes’ progressive rock music and the extraordinarily talented musicians who performed these sonic masterworks; while my rock and roll attention runs the gamut, Yes in all its incarnations remain one of my top rock and roll acts of all time.

Awaken

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GQ

Answer to the trivia question: Who was the first act signed to Swan Song Records?

Bad Company

Yes, the first recording artist signed to Led Zeppelin’s record label was the rock and blues band led by the great lead vocalist Paul Rodgers.

Climax Blues Band was a strong opening act as they did have some radio hits at the time.

Our seats atadison Square Garden were mid level and pretty dead center. Way back before tiered pricing, premium pricing, special packages, meet and greets, and worse year, dynamic pricing became commonplace business practices, an entire venue would be sold at one price from the front row to the last seat in the house. Unless you had a hook with someone who had a Ticketmaster machine, the odds of getting really good tickets were slim. In Flushing, Queens the Ticketmaster machine was located at the Jolly Joint on Main Street. The Zjolly Jount was a head shop specializing in selling pipes, bongs and rolling papers. When concert tickets went on sale a line would form up down the street but it seemed that the best seats were always long gone whenever you got in. Years later I learned that the owners of these machines would furiously print out the best seats in between customers. A really tough ticket could mean that you could be left in the cold without one after a really short amount of time on line. Most times we were just happy to go to the show as the best seats were out of out reach.

The most memorable moment of the Bad Company show was that someone for some reason set a seat on fire up toward the left of us. There were actual flames as the seat burned and the band played on.

Burnin’ Sky

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GQ

Fresh on the heals of the only Led Zeppelin show that I would experience, the first of what would turn out to be many Crosby, Stills and Nash concerts that I would attend took place at Madison Square Garden in June, 1977. Now I do not have any specific memory of this particular concert, and I am not sure that this was the same show, but there was a CSN concert where we took the 7 train from Flushing to Penn Station when the ride was abruptly stopped for what seemed like a long time. As a matter of fact, the train did not move for so long that we were in danger of missing the start of the concert. The train eventually got going and we later heard that someone had apparently jumped in front of a train ahead of us causing the delay. While the concert itself is not clear, I do recall the train delay as if it happened yesterday. These blogs will show a decades long journey from teen to grandfather following the music and careers of Crosby, Stills, Nash (& Young) in all of their many configurations.as solo artists and as a “supergroup”. David Crosby, Stephen Stills and Graham Nash have been a focal point of my rock and roll obsession for decades; a perfect blend of acoustic, electric, lyrical genius and harmonies that helped to forge, expand, and cement the folk rock movement as led by Bob Dylan among many others before them. Crosby, Stills and Nash are at odds with each other following various falling outs through the years, and David Crosby claims that he may lose his house due to the inability to tour in this pandemic year 2020. However unlikely a reunion seems at the present, never say never when it comes to these aging road warriors who continue to record and tour as solo artists into, we hope, the foreseeable future

Triad

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GQ

On the heals of an epic Led Zeppelin concert at Madison Square Garden, the soon to be legendary southern rock group Lynyrd Skynyrd arrived at the Nassau Coliseum with the Motor City Madman, Ted Nugent, and opener Rough Diamond.

Months after the missed opportunity of attending a Lynyrd Skynyrd show at New York City’s Paladium with Bebop Deluxe, I was given a second chance to see the original line up with Ronnie Van Zant. Our seats were midway up to the left of the stage; where a white piano was a visual focal point while the dual guitars bobbed and weaved around Van Zant who was clearly the ring master of the southern rock virtuosity on display.. The double live album “One More From the Road” had cemented the band’s reputation as a force to be reckoned with along with the Allman Brothers Band and the road warriors aimed to prove their mettle live.

Ted Nugent was with the Asbury Dukes when “Journey to the Center of the Mind” hypnotically grabbed people’s attention but his solo albums developed hardcore fans with those enamored with their lead guitar hero. His first solo album containing “Stranglehold”, and my personal favorite collection “Free For All”, made Nugent a seemingly odd but logical second act on this arena tour.

It was a golden age for live rick and roll.

Wang Dang Sweet Poontang

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GQ

Led Zeppelin coming to Mew York City for six dates at Madison Square Garden in June, 1977 was big news and the toughest ticket in town. My friends and I made the trip on the 7 Line from Flushing, Queens to see rock and rock royalty whose arrival was covered by every newspaper and media outlet in New York and beyond. Our seats were midway up facing the left side of the stage. The crowd was ecstatic and pumped to see true rock gods in the flesh. The music was legendary, the venue epic and the crowd was electric. The laser light show during Jimmy Page’s “Dazed snd Confused” solo was state of the art at the time and amazing. When the band broke in to “Rock and Roll” near the end of the show, the crowd was ecstatic with the masses dancing and singing in a communal rite of passage. It was only my second concert going experience and although I would see Page and Plant incarnations for many years to follow, it would be the only time I would attend an actual “Led Zeppelin” concert. When John Bonham died, the band announced that it was over, and they amazingly stuck to their guns and except for a Live Aid appearance with Phil Collins and a one off for Ahmet Ertegon with Bonzo’s son Jason Bonham on drums.

Led Zeppelin is on the Mount Rushmore of rock and roll acts, with The Rolling Stones, Beatles, and you pick the fourth act. Feel free to discuss.

Unfortunately, a Robert Plant/ Saving Grace gig that had been scheduled for the intimate Town Hall in mid town Manhattan has been postponed due to the pandemic.

Stairway to Heaven indeed

Stay well

Stay safe

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GQ

The journey begins here but it could have started differently. My first concert experience was supposed to have been Lynyrd Skynyrd and Bebop Deluxe at The Paladium theatre in New York City but yours truly skipped a day at Saint Francis Prep high school in Queens, got caught and got grounded delaying my introduction to live music until Queen and Thin Lizzy played Madison Square Garden on a Saturday night in February, 1977; I had just turned seventeen and a lifetime passion for the live music experience was ignited.

The lights went down at the packed arena, a seen wailed and two red emergency lights rotated on eithe side of the stage while Thin Lizzy broke into “Jailbreak”. Summer of 1976 was the summer of Frampton Comes Alive and Thin Lizzy’s “The Boys Are Back in Town”. It was a golden age for rock and roll with so much great music from the 1960’s in the can and so many mythic recordings yet to come. There was no internet of course so album covers gave you the glimpse into the mystique of a band and the young fans proudly extolled their favorite bands on boom box radios as part of their identity. “The Boys are Back in Town” could have been about almost any neighborhood; the story was an anthem that could belong to anyone and everyone. Thin Lizzy was a great rock and roll act to open for the legendary Queen.

Queen opened with the hard rocker “Tie Your Mother Down” and it kicked ass. We sat mid level slightly left center and were mesmerized. The show was a perfect combination of sight and sound with a then state of the art light show which made “Now I’m Here” an illusion with Freddie Mercury appearing as if by magic beneath alternating spotlights on the MSG stage. Queen was a great live act with many familiar songs but the best was yet to come; Led Zeppelin was to take over New York City in June and I managed assay for one of the toughest tickets this city had seen to that point.

Killer Queen

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GQ

In 1978, Meat Loaf’s “Bat Out of Hell” album was a humongous hit and his energetic acrobatic stage shows had become the stuff of legend but, unfortunately for me, before I finally had the opportunity to see Mr. Loaf live in concert, he had broken his leg and the show was postponed from April to the rescheduled May date. The Good Rats opened the concert at Saint John’s University in Queens; the band was one of the acts with a strong local following in a white hot Long Island club scene that included Twisted Sister, Zebra and a host of really good bands clawing for record contracts, radio airplay and the adulation of butgeoning rock and rollers. It was a great time to grow up in Queens, and Long Island, and The Good Rats were pretty popular elder statesmen of the circuit. Pepe Marchello was the front man who famously used a baseball bat as a prop during his performances and they did have at least one local radio hit “Taking It To Detroit”.

The headliner Meat Loaf took the St. John’s University stage, which I think was in their basketball arena, in a wheelchair. Now this could not be good; we all came to see the Meat Man sing while doing his tumblesaults and he was stuck in a wheelchair where he spent the entire show bringing the energy level way down. It was not until the encore he dramatically staggered out of the chair like a latter day Frankenstein monster and played out the night’s festivities; a wheelchair could not hold our hero down. It was a memorable night partly for what the show did not produce, but it was entertaining nonetheless.

Two Out of Three Ain’t Bad (I guess)

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GQ

Pink Floyd’s highly anticipated double album “The Wall” turned out to be a defining moment and one of the iconic artistic musical projects in rock and roll history. Unbelievably the US leg of “The Wall” tour consisted of five nights at Nassau Coliseum on Long Island and sseven nights in Los Angelos.; that is it. In the Nassau Coliseum parking lot before my first of two nights I was lucky enough to attend, we met a pair of guys who took the railroad from Canada without tickets to see Pink Floyd in the flesh. We had our tickets to the hopefully sold out show, but someone we knew made a connection with a ticket taker at the Coliseum entrance who agreed to let us in for fifty bucks a piece. We sold our pair of tickets to our new Canadian friends for $100 each, a lot of money for a concert in 1980, who also agreed to sneak our beers into the venue in their backpacks. We entered the Coliseum and immediately sought out the Canadians to retrieve the beers. We located them and the beers sitting in what had been our seats, and somehow ended up staying in the empty seats next to them for the show all night.

No one knew what to expect and the anticipation was palpable. It all seems somewhat common place now but the quadrophonic sound, props, animation projected on a white wall being constructed before our eyes was amazing. Any thoughts of “greatest hits” being played after “The Wall” album was performed in its entirety were blown to bits when the wall came down leaving the stage in rubble. Superlatives do not do the event justice; it was extraordinary, unforgettable and never truly equaled over time. One of the great concerts of all time that “Rust Never Sleeps” and other rock performances of the time to new heights not seen before. Duplicated, replicated but never surpassed, Pink Floyd climbed to the top of the arena rock mountain and cemented their legendary status for all time.

This is Not a Drill

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GQ

Before one of a series of concerts performed in December, 2007 by Neil Young at the United Palace Theatre, formerly Reverend Ike’s church, in New York City, the crowd was kept outside while the New York City Fire Department conducted an investigation at that location. One story circulating outside was that James Dolan was ticked off at Neil Young because he was not playing at one of Dolan’s Madison Square Garden venues and that he contacted his friends at the RCFD to report insufficient emergency exits for the event. The crowd waited patiently outside while showtime approached and at some point the NYFD gave it’s ok and the doors were opened. Afterward a story circulated that Donald Trump was a huge Neil Young fan who was also going to the concert, and that Trump called his then buddy Mayor Michael Bloomberg to call off the fire department so that the show could go off as scheduled. Fake news? I do not know for sure but it is an interesting story in these times in any event.

Campaigner

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GQ

The Dr Pepper Summer Concert Series in Central Park was a cheap haven for rock music of all kinds that was inexpensive and a subway ride away from Queens where we lived. Orchestra seats were $4.50, balcony $2.50 and if you could not get a ticket or just did not care to pay, you could hang out on the rocks beyond the outer fence and hear the show just fine. We would go to anything and everything , finding ourselves in the vicinity of the park two or three times a week usually. It was the equivalent to today’s sheds where some of the same acts still roam but cheaper and most acts in their creative prime. I know I attended the Devo concert somehow, someway but I have no particular recollection of this particular show. Devo famously helped Neil Young coin the phrase “Rust Never Sleeps” and appeared in Young’s eclectic film masterpiece “Human Highway.”. Devo’s Mark Mothersbough further went on to create music for the Rugrats cartoons launching a whole new generation into de-evolution.

I Can’t Get Me No Satisfaction

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GQ