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Thread: California Jam I 40 years ago this week

  1. #26
    Quote Originally Posted by Supersonic Scientist View Post
    Can't recall what year it was (1973/4-ish) Watkins Glenn Festival. Me and my friends wanted to go SO BADLY but our parents would have no part of that. Line-up was: The Band, The Greatful Dead, The Allmond Bros. (we were only 15 at the time and upstate NY was a LONG ways away from the Jersey Shore.)
    Watkins Glen was the summer of 73 (I'd have to check my bootlegs, but I want to say it was sometime in July). Supposedly, at the time, it was the biggest audience ever at a concert, even bigger than the Woodstock. I think it wasn't until the second US Festival in 83, I think it was, that there was a bigger crowd.

    There was so many people there the day before the fest, they decided to have an "soundcheck/dress rehearsal" for those who had already arrived. The Dead's performance during this so called soundcheck was, for many years, more sought after by tape collectors than the supposed "official" festival performance the next day, apparently another example of Jerry's claim that "we were never good on the special occasions".

    I forgot who it was who said at some point they had a big jam with people from all three bands, and it didn't work, because apparently everyone was on different combinations of drugs (eg Dead members on pot and/or acid, Allmans members on coke, and The Band mostly likely just plain drunk) which caused everyone to fail to synch up in any kind of coherent fashion. I gather it was a real train wreck.

    Oh, and that's Allman Brothers, not Allmond Brothers.

  2. #27
    Parrots Ripped My Flesh Dave (in MA)'s Avatar
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    According to this article, only 3 tracks from the Band's Watkins Glen album are actually from Watkins Glen.
    http://theband.hiof.no/articles/wg_pat_brennan.html

  3. #28
    [QUOTE=GuitarGeek;242869Oh, and that's Allman Brothers, not Allmond Brothers.[/QUOTE]

    ...oops, my bad. No excuse for THAT typo.

  4. #29
    Member Dave the Brave's Avatar
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    I was at Watkins Glen show and never laid eyes, or ears on any of the bands.

    620,000 people meant we couldn't get anywhere near the stage.

    Cheap acid and a thunderstorm was our entertainment for the weekend.

    Tix were $30 and no one even checked out if we had them.

    DtB

  5. #30
    Member nosebone's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Dave the Brave View Post
    I was at Watkins Glen show and never laid eyes, or ears on any of the bands.

    620,000 people meant we couldn't get anywhere near the stage.

    Cheap acid and a thunderstorm was our entertainment for the weekend.

    Tix were $30 and no one even checked out if we had them.

    DtB
    The 70s...., so long ago.
    no tunes, no dynamics, no nosebone

  6. #31
    Loved watching this on TV back in the day. I used to do the cassette mic pressed up to the TV thing... although in this case I recall it being simulcast over WNEW-FM so I had a pretty good cassette copy of it. You had to be quick on the button to shut the cassette recorder when a commercial came on. For years I would listen to this tape and at the end of one song I wasn't fast enough and there was, "Homer Price, wethead... Homer Price, the dry look..."
    You say Mega Ultra Deluxe Special Limited Edition Extended Autographed 5-LP, 3-CD, 4-DVD, 2-BlueRay, 4-Cassette, five 8-Track, MP4 Download plus Demos, Outtakes, Booklet, T-Shirt and Guitar Pick Gold-Leafed Box Set Version like it's a bad thing...

  7. #32
    Quote Originally Posted by GuitarGeek View Post
    Apparently, the people from ABC kept the whole show running on schedule (as TV broadcasters tend to do), they actually had Deep Purple ready to go on about an hour for dusk.

    I don't see why the TV broadcast scheduling would be tightly enforced during the show,since it was not broadcast live. AFAIK it wasn't broadcast until some weeks after, (in sections, with edits) over several nights.
    Last edited by ssully; 12-02-2014 at 07:21 PM.

  8. #33
    Quote Originally Posted by ssully View Post
    I don't see why the TV broadcast scheduling would be tightly enforced during the show,since it was not broadcast live. AFAIK it wasn't broadcast until some weeks after, (in sections, with edits) over several nights.
    Whether or not it was broadcast live is besides the point. The television industry is run on a very tight schedule. That was the kind of time management schedule that the people from ABC TV who were running Cal Jam would have been used to. And such schedule keeping happens whether or not you're broadcasting live. That's just how things are done.

    Keep in mind that a lot of that has to do union regulations, and certainly at Cal Jam, they'd have been dealing with at least the camera operators' union, so they probably had to be done by a certain hour to make sure they didn't have to pay the cameramen overtime. Same reason as why concerts in "proper" concert venues, ie concert halls, theaters, etc, are always over by 11:00pm, because the band gets fined by the usher's union or whatever if the show runs past that.

  9. #34
    Saw this on TV when I was 16, also taped it on cassette with a little microphone held up to the TV like others did! Deep Purple was powerful; I loved the Coverdale/Hughes vocals. Got the DVD of this years later and it was just as great as I remember it.
    You say Mega Ultra Deluxe Special Limited Edition Extended Autographed 5-LP, 3-CD, 4-DVD, 2-BlueRay, 4-Cassette, five 8-Track, MP4 Download plus Demos, Outtakes, Booklet, T-Shirt and Guitar Pick Gold-Leafed Box Set Version like it's a bad thing...

  10. #35
    Moderator Sean's Avatar
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    Do you think the rainbow back drop at the '83 US Festival was inspired by the one at Cali Jam?

  11. #36
    Quote Originally Posted by Sean View Post
    Do you think the rainbow back drop at the '83 US Festival was inspired by the one at Cali Jam?
    I wonder if it influenced Blackmore's new band name, and their lightshow.

  12. #37
    I've been told the name Rainbow came from the L.A. bar but after seeing the Cal Jam footage, I wonder if that's true. I don't know exactly when Ritchie decided to ditch DP and we will probably never get the truth but that rainbow is somewhat coincidental, to say the least.
    Carry On My Blood-Ejaculating Son - JKL2000

  13. #38
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    Growing up in West Palm Beach, FL, I was able to endure the cold and wet to go the Palm Beach Music and Art Festival in 1969 at the Speedway. Not many people, but lots of great bands, to include:


    Iron Butterfly
    The Rolling Stones
    Janis Joplin
    Jefferson Airplane
    Sly and the Family Stone
    The Chambers Brothers
    The Byrds
    Joni Mitchell
    Johhny and Edgar Winter
    Steppenwolf
    Grand Funk Railroad (what I wanted to see the most at the time)

    And some new, unknown band named...

    King Crimson

    I wish I was a few years older than 13 when I went, so as to better appreciate what i saw. Who knew that so many of these bands and musicians would become legendary?

  14. #39
    Highly Evolved Orangutan JKL2000's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by prglvr View Post
    I did not attend, but did have a friend who went. He got stoned (of course) and while lying on the grass had someone drop an ice chest on his face.
    Oh, what an unlucky man he was!

  15. #40
    Quote Originally Posted by JKL2000 View Post
    Oh, what an unlucky man he was!

  16. #41
    Member Digital_Man's Avatar
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    Funny how Black Sabbath and not Deep Purple are considered to be "heavy metal" and yet it was DP and not Sabbath who held the record for loudest concert at this festival. Yeah I would love to see this released on dvd. I was four at the time so of course I had no clue about it. Apparently ELP and Deep Purple were the headliners.
    Do not suffer through the game of chance that plays....always doors to lock away your dreams (To Be Over)

  17. #42
    Quote Originally Posted by Digital_Man View Post
    Funny how Black Sabbath and not Deep Purple are considered to be "heavy metal" and yet it was DP and not Sabbath who held the record for loudest concert at this festival. Yeah I would love to see this released on dvd. I was four at the time so of course I had no clue about it. Apparently ELP and Deep Purple were the headliners.
    Were you under the impression that "Heavy Metal" is defined first and foremost by volume?

    I'm pretty sure if you asked ten thousand metal musicians why Black Sabbath best define the style, volume would not score particularly big as a reference point.

  18. #43
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    I think ELP were at a peak on this show. I wouldn't say the Mark III line-up was Deep Purple at their best...it's good to see the footage, but I don't like Coverdale/Hughes' versions of the Ian Gillan stuff. Even on his own stuff Hughes tends to screech too much (which only got worse later) and I preferred Jon Lord's playing before he started on the synthesisers he's using on some tracks here. Ritchie Blackmore is magnetic throughout, though.

  19. #44
    Quote Originally Posted by Digital_Man View Post
    Funny how Black Sabbath and not Deep Purple are considered to be "heavy metal" and yet it was DP and not Sabbath who held the record for loudest concert at this festival. Yeah I would love to see this released on dvd. I was four at the time so of course I had no clue about it. Apparently ELP and Deep Purple were the headliners.
    Wasn't The Who the loudest band back then? Would that make them the heaviest metal?
    "The White Zone is for loading and unloading only. If you got to load or unload go to the White Zone!"

  20. #45
    Member davis's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Supersonic Scientist View Post
    Missed posting this by a couple of days but wanted to start a thread on the iconic festival. The April 1974 festival (which aired on ABC-TV a few weeks later) turned this 15yr old onto ELP & Black Sabbath and REALLY started getting me to take music much more seriously (I had just started playing GTR a few months before this festival crossed my path and it was a watershed moment for me)

    High-light moments were: ELP doing excerpts from Pictures, CP drum solo with gongs, flying piano, Sabbath just BLOWING my mind!!!, Seals & Crofts doing Summer Breeze (a major radio hit at the time and I still love that song) Deep Purple (Blackmore) blowing up he gear and smashing the TV camera!!

    Your thoughts and memories...
    first off, I love your avatar. that's my favorite GFR record. I only remembering seeing ELP and the levitating piano and probably Deep PUrple. I've seen the Sab set but on YT. I was going to mention the Nuge set but that was '78.

  21. #46
    Quote Originally Posted by JeffCarney View Post
    Were you under the impression that "Heavy Metal" is defined first and foremost by volume?

    I'm pretty sure if you asked ten thousand metal musicians why Black Sabbath best define the style, volume would not score particularly big as a reference point.
    Didn't the Grateful Dead once hold that loudest position with their wall of sound? They certainly aren't metal. As I happen to be a huge DP fan and not much of a BS fan (full disclosure) I have agree with you. Dp was never a metal band but they are in the big three, IMO, as forefathers and a huge influence on musicians who have played metal and other genres. Metal, no. Damn close to metal, yes. Doing it at the time they were doing it, yes. Two out of three ain't bad.

    I saw the Dead once. If they had been louder I might have killed myself. Thank the Gods I never had to hear that.

    @JJ88, I agree, mostly. Don't mind the synths but Ritchie is a bad ass. I just listened to Straight Between the Eyes and he really shines on that, killer fillers in most of the songs even if they are too "poppy" for many. For someone who always hated the studio he did some really killer work at times.
    Carry On My Blood-Ejaculating Son - JKL2000

  22. #47
    Quote Originally Posted by ronmac View Post
    Wasn't The Who the loudest band back then? Would that make them the heaviest metal?
    Which question are you asking? Who was the loudest rock group, or who held the Guinness Book record? Deep Purple held it first, then The Who broke the record in 1976. From what I remember Manowar eventually broke The Who's record, but the category was eventually dropped because of the inherent harm that can cause from trying to outdo a world record that was already going to give the participants severe hearing problems.

    But beyond that, I suspect at least back then, most bands hovered in the 110-120 decibel range, so to me, if one band was 3 or 4 decibels louder on a given night is a moot point.

  23. #48
    Quote Originally Posted by TheLoony View Post
    Didn't the Grateful Dead once hold that loudest position with their wall of sound?
    Not according to the Guinness Book Of World Records. But yes, I do recall that the Wall Of Sound supposedly put out 120 decibels, but it was a clean 120 decibels, meaning no distortion. I remember someone telling me they said the Dead was the only show they went home from without a headache or ringing ears, apparently because of that difference.

  24. #49
    Quote Originally Posted by GuitarGeek View Post
    Which question are you asking? Who was the loudest rock group, or who held the Guinness Book record? Deep Purple held it first, then The Who broke the record in 1976. From what I remember Manowar eventually broke The Who's record, but the category was eventually dropped because of the inherent harm that can cause from trying to outdo a world record that was already going to give the participants severe hearing problems.

    But beyond that, I suspect at least back then, most bands hovered in the 110-120 decibel range, so to me, if one band was 3 or 4 decibels louder on a given night is a moot point.
    I was merely pointing out the flawed logic of equating volume to heaviness.
    "The White Zone is for loading and unloading only. If you got to load or unload go to the White Zone!"

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