Less than a week after the epic Led Zeppelin show at Madison Square Garden, we were off to see Lynyrd Skynyrd and Ted Nugent at the Nassau Coliseum on Long Island. Now I only knew how to get to Jones Beach and the Roosevelt Field mall from Queens and the police on Long Island had a reputation for being tough on long haired rockers. The half hour trip to Uniondale may as well have been a cross country trek. This was not the New York City we were familiar with and there was an element of danger as we traveled eastbound through the toll booths on the Southern State Parkway where we crossed over the Nassau/Queens border toward a new rock and roll adventure.

I have no recollection of the band Rough Diamond as they opened for the co-headliners.

On its surface teaming Lynyrd Skynyrd and the Motor City Madman on the same bill seemed like on odd match but they were on the same record label and it just worked somehow.  I had spent much of the past year cranking my homemade “Free For All” cassette on my boombox and one of the best singles that I had bought growing up was “Journey to the Center of the Mind” by the Amboy Dukes featuring the blistering guitar of Ted Nugent.

The original Lynyrd Skynyrd lineup was legendary and Ronnie Van  Zant was its heart and soul. Our vantage point was high and to the left of the stage with the white piano as a visual centerpiece.  Live “Freebird” was, and is, an all time classic and the Mr. Young mention on “Sweet Home Alabama’ is one of the great retorts of all time.

Later on, Ronnie Van Zant would wear a Neil Young ‘Tonight’s the Night” T-shirt on the cover of the ‘Street Survivors” album that showed the band members enveloped by flames; an album cover that was suddenly pulled from record store shelves and repackaged without the fire after the tragic plane crash that changed the Lynyrd Skynyrd dynamic forever. 

A few weeks later following the Coliseum show as we ventured back to Queens from a Nassau County rock club, we got lost driving through Valley Stream in the western part of Nassau County not to far from home base. The same “Free For All” cassette was blasting and we were having a great time driving around surburbia at night. We were lost and checked the local street signs as we drove to try and figure out where we were. We had lost our bearings and really had no idea even which direction we were heading but found ourselves on, of all places, Nugent Street- no joke. We were actually traveling on NUGENT STREET ! This was obviously a cosmic coincidence and action needed to be taken. We parked the car underneath the street sign and I stood on the car hood. Unbelievably I could reach the top of the sign post and the whole thing was held together with one bolt that was easily unscrewed. As I had just about dismantled the street sign, an angry older man came out of his house and yelled that he was going to call the dreaded Nassau County Police regarding our metal mischief. As the well intentioned resident ran towards us, I grabbed the rectangular white street sign with black trim and Nugent Street was now in our possession. Our car careened down the otherwise quiet street with headlights off so as not to have the railing square see the license plate and get us caught; the four of us elated traveled home with Ted providing the soundtrack to the fun.

I’ve always wanted to show the Motor City Madman the street sign and tell him the story of our well intentioned thievery in the name of rock and roll. The sign is still in my attic, along with a Fallout Shelter sign from an old apartment building in Queens.

New Year’s always reminds me of the Allman Brothers Band/Molly Hatchet concert at the Nassau Coliseum that took place on 12/31/1981; my future bride and I headed back home on the Northern State Parkway after the show and we saw a tall young man wearing a cardboard Happy New Year hat happily walking on the white line in the middle of the roadway. He seemed to be quite content strolling down the road as cars whizzed passed him at 50 MPH (or more) oblivious to his precarious situation. Here’s hoping everyone had a good time and got home safe last night.

Happy New Year

and Rock On

GQ