Concerts you have been to? | Page 10 | Fab Forum | The Beatles Bible

How about a series of posts with the theme “Concerts Gone Wrong”? First up, jazz sax man Sonny Rollins.

In 1972 I was treated by a stranger to my first jazz club concert. The club was located on a busy street in a college town. I remember there was a little lobby that opened up to a bar area. Besides the large wooded bar, there were couches and closed circuit tv broadcasting the performance from the showroom. The showroom had many tables and chairs with a small dance floor in front of the stage. The entire place including the walls and chairs was covered in red velvet. The artist was the saxophonist Sonny Rollins, who is black. To my surprise there was not one black person to be found, only long haired 20-something caucasians like me (and I had a fake ID). It was clear that the rules of etiquette of this place were to socialize in the first room and focus on the musicians in the second. We watched the first set in the bar and then moved up close to the stage for the second set. I was not familiar with the jazz code of conduct and had a hard time finding the groove. I may have closed my eyes like during a hippie space jam and just let my mind wander. The concert appeared to come to an end and without warning Sonny grabbed the bar stool he’d been leaning against, raised it over his head, and smashed it into pieces. One of the legs went flying by my head as we walked off like nothing had happened. At first I thought maybe he was doing a “Townsend” move, but the guy I was with said he was pissed off at the crowd. Now that I know more about this passionate artist, I suspect he was frustrated with his playing that night. Either way, I took the fractured stool leg with me and must have been a curious sight walking down the street with it hanging on my shoulder.

Next up: Grateful Dead guitarist Jerry Garcia stops playing mid-song.

This is the second in a series of posts titled Concerts Gone Wrong. This one features a 1980 show by singer/songwriter Harry Chapin. 

I saw him once at a Stop Hunger outdoor benefit at Stanford University. The “ticket” to get in was a can of food. He was playing solo and I remember when he sang Taxi he taught the females in the crowd to sing the falsetto part (it was funny and poignant at the same time). There were about 20 or 30 frat guys crowded at the front of the stage. They were all wrestling around while drinking beer and generally creating a rowdy scene while Harry was trying to play. Finally after a few songs Harry jumped off the stage right in the middle of these guys. We didn’t know what he was going to do and then we realized he was joining them. He had a beer and sat on the grass chatting for a while. Eventually he got back on stage and continued the show. I don’t know what he said but the frat guys calmed down and listened to his music. His way of handling the situation was just so cool. By the end of the show the entire crowd was singing the chorus to Cats In The Cradle while he conducted and smiled away

.

Next up: Sonic Youth meltdown

Nice to see you @WeepingAtlasCedars! I’ve missed your postings. It sounds like you have a lot of pent-up live music energy leftover from the lockdown (me too).

@vonbontee I wish I would have known you back then, so I could have avoided feeling bad about the crowd all these years. I’m not sure what happened to the stool fragment. I vaguely remember trading it for something, but I can’t imagine what.

This is the fourth in a series of posts titled Concerts Gone Wrong. This one features a 2005 show by guitarist Carlos Santana.

For a few years in the late sixties, Santana was the opener for many of the Bay Area concerts I attended. I didn’t realize at the time that Bill Graham (the promoter) was their manager. Carlos always wore a tank top and kind of gave off a tough guy image. The band was a little unusual due to their Latin vibe and multi-racial musicians. When I saw the Woodstock movie in the spring of 1970 I was shocked to see Santana up on the big screen. I read a book about Hollywood that pointed out one of the reasons for our “hero worship” of stars is because when we see them on screen they are as tall as a house. I kind of had that feeling of heightened importance, even though I’d heard that exact set a dozen times. I wonder now if what I experienced is similar to what fans that hung out at the Cavern felt when they saw A Hard Days Night for the first time. The next time I encountered Carlos was in 1988 at a college campus concert. He had morphed into a spiritual shaman, wearing a colorful robe and smiling peacefully as the smell of sandalwood filled the air.

In 2005 I was attending another one of the annual corporate concert celebrations. As usual we had no idea who would be preforming. I usually didn’t pay that much attention to the food, but at this party my favorite steakhouse was in attendance. They had this lobster mac and cheese that was awesome, so I was standing in line when I heard:

Don’t you feel it growing, day by day
People getting ready for the news
Some are happy, some are sad
Whoa, gotta let the music play

Liking The Doobie Brothers more that cheese, I took off running. I caught most of the song and when they finished it Tom jokingly said ”Whoops, we played our encore first”. The crowd filled in and they put on a rocking show. They ended up playing Listen To The Music twice, which was fine with me.

Next up was Santana. He was dressed this time like a jazzman with dark silky suit and a matching skull cap. He had a great sax player (can’t recall his name) and multiple percussion and keyboards. This time he had morphed into John Coltrane. It is hard to explain, but his guitar playing was like a melodic experiment and took the whole band and listeners on a journey. I loved it and it was by far the most creative performance of the 30 I saw over those 10 years. He closed with a version of A Love Supreme in which he allowed every member of the band room to move. When they finished Carlos jumped down from the stage and joined the crowd. I was close enough to hear him tell someone he wanted to see Earth Wind and Fire too (Don’t think he knew it was supposed to be a secret). I saw a little kid come up and say something to him, after which Carlos took his cap off and put it on his head. Later the kid gave the cap back saying “Thanks you Swantana”.

Earth, Wind and Fire must have been on tour because they were in top form. They played a long version of That’s The Way Of The World that brought all of the employees together in musical unity. To my tastes this was the best concert of the 10 I attended. Unfortunately, the fifth anniversary of the company also marked the final vesting of everyone’s stock options. Many people soon left for other companies and there was some grumbling about this concert because a rival firm had hired Neil Diamond.