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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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GQ

My 30th concert experience was performed at Madison Square Garden where Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band took the stage and rocked the house. Back in the 1970’s, event security was not what it is today, and at the end of those marathon Bruce Springsteen shows some fans, most female, would climb up onto the low situated stage and run towards Bruce, hugging him before security dragged them off as the band played on (Rosalita?). My buddy from our Flushing neighborhood, Joe Fisk, and I had managed to work our way down to the front orchestra near the end of the show. I got stalled at about 5th row and we got separated at some point as Joe continued forward. The extended jam encore played on and the gals in the front hopped onto the stage until security pulled them off and then I spotted Joe leaning against the stage left center. I then saw him lift one leg on to the stage and he pushed himself upright. Springsteen was furiously working the stage and Joe walked toward him with extended right hand. Bruce grabbed Joe by the left wrist and ran off the stage with him to the right of us into the dark. The E Street Band played the extended jam throughout. My first thought was “My god, when they get him backstage they are going to beat the sh*t out of him”. The next thing I know Bruce Springsteen was running back center stage still holding on to Joe Fisk’s wrist, they stopped dead center and Bruce raised both their arms in the air triumphantly. The sight of Joe wearing his white T-shirt with the Chicago (the band) logo in red lettering prominent across his chest is embedded in my memory. With that, Bruce still holding on to Joe”s wrist, ran the both of them offstage once again and the concert ended. Afterward I told Joe I thought that he might have gotten a beating by security but he said Bruce actually looked back to ensure that would not happen. Bruce Springsteen and his fans exhibited a true joy during all of this concert that unbelievably took place 42 years ago. Let’s hope that Bruce Springsteen and all the true believers in the power of rock and roll are back out on the road soon as none of us are getting any younger.

One Step Back

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GQ

In August, 1978, the Allman Brothers Band was broken up with Gregg Allman and Dickey Betts each pursuing their own projects. On this night in Central Park, my friends and I were on the floor for the Dickey Betts & Great Southern concert but at some point during the show we ended up on the wrong side of the fence on the outside looking in. We were scrambling to find a way back in to the venue, which these days of high security would have been an impossibility, but we managed to find a security guard who just wanted us to go away and he let us back in to the mezzanine section. Just as we got back in, a surprise guest appeared to sit in with the band. The estranged Gregg Allman walked onstage and the place went bonkers. This evening’s public appearance of the two Allman Brothers bandmates turned out to be an impetus for the full fledge reunion that would follow.

Enlightened Rogues

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The road goes on forever!

GQ

While not a concert, Laser Rock at the Hayden Planetarium goes down as a musical experience in my book. While in this day and age, lasers pulsating on a planetarium ceiling synchronized to a tock music soundtrack may seem like a stretch for a Saturday night out in Manhattan but depending on the state of mind you were in at the time, it was a pretty cool way to spend a Saturday evening with nothing much else to do. The first time I actually saw lasers in action was at Madison Square Garden during Jimmy Page’s “Dazed and Confused” inspired bow solo. The technology is obviously way more advanced today, but at the time it was definitely visually eye-popping, especially to a bunch of teenage rock and rollers from Queens.

Dark Side of the Moon

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GQ

Discovering the Dr. Pepper Concerts at Central Park was a revelation. In 1978, the music business was exploding and I could not get enough live rock and roll. It was not just the music, although that is what brought us all together, but it was the teenage tribal ritual of gearing up, anticipating, getting to the venue, hanging out with friends, meeting like minded rockers, partying and experiencing the event in person. It was also a time before the internet, YouTube or even VHS players at home were readily available. If you wanted to see your favorite bands perform you had to either attend a concert or go to a midnight showing of a rock documentary film. Information about your favorite bands came from music magazines but mostly from album covers and liner notes. When the lights came on and the band hit the stage for your first time it was definitely a rush. The Dr.Pepper Concerts took place outdoors in midtown Manhattan all summer long , several times a week, and the tickets were cheap- $4.50 for the floor and $2.50 for a mezzanine in the rear. If the show was sold out or you just did not want to spend money on a ticket, you could hang out on the boulders beyond the rear fencing and hear the show just fine. We went to a lot of Central Park concerts and it did not matter much who was playing as it was only a 7 train ride and a short walk to spend the evening in the vicinity of some great music. I do not recall this particular Patti Smith Group concert, and I am not even sure if we got in, but I have seen the band many times through the years and they never fail to kick ass.

So You Want to be a Rock ‘n’ Roll Star

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GQ

As I have said before, Crosby Stills and Nash concert memories are a bit of a blur as I have gone to quite a few but do have one particular CSN at Nassau Coliseum story that is memorable though. My childhood friend and concert buddy Joe Fisk and I manage to move up to the front left orchestra somehow, back in the day before tiered pricing and tough security. CSN were in the middle of their acoustic set but Joe Fisk and I were so pumped up to see our heroes up close, we were on our feet hooting and hollering during a particularly quiet moment in the show. A seated David Crosby looked down at us, glassy eyed with a big sh*t eating grin on his face, and happily said “What are you guys on?” After reading David Btowne’s outstanding biography of CSNY, I now have an idea of what David Crosby was up to back stage on those tours and why he might ask us that question.

Might As Well Have a Good Time

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GQ