Elder Music: 4 January 2009

The importance of San Francisco to the 60s music scene cannot be overstated. To list the bands that came out of that city and its surrounds or made their mark there are too numerous to mention, but the Grateful Dead is certainly iconic of the era.

This is a vintage news report from Harry Reasoner of CBS-TV, broadcast in 1967, including an interview with the Dead and footage of a free concert they gave in Golden Gate Park. It is priceless for the point of view of a “straight” adult trying to make sense of hippies. And, were the Dead ever this young? [7:04 minutes]

Australian Peter Tibbles, who occasionally contributes to The Elder Storytelling Place, sent along this story about the loudest rock band ever to which I have added some 60s era video clips – some you will be familiar with and others, Australian, Americans may never have heard of.

Peter begins…

Which was the loudest rock band ever? Or the loudest you ever heard, perhaps. Now I know this isn't a question of great import but come on, I know we're all responsible adults now but didn't we have fun when we were younger?

We'd go out and listen to music that now we think, oh maybe we shouldn't have done that. Too late now. Isn't this a question we have asked ourselves over the years? Well, I've asked it and received the answer years ago. I posit this with the proviso that I didn't ever see Led Zeppelin play live. However, I think I can beat even them. Well, not personally. Let me explain.

I spent much of 1970 in the San Francisco Bay area, mostly in Berkeley, but other places as well. This is a tale of a different color and I won't dwell on it here. I went to many concerts at The Fillmore, Winterland, The Family Dog, local clubs. The bigger venues are what I'm talking about here.

If you want big venues, try Woodstock. Peter doesn’t mention Janis Joplin, who was from Austin but became identified with the San Francisco music scene, and I remember this performance of Ball and Chain from Janis with her Kosmic Blues Band at Woodstock. God, I wish she’d lived. Wouldn’t it be interesting to see and hear how she developed over the years. [5:24 minutes]

Peter continues…

I saw the Grateful Dead at the Fillmore a number of times. I would go to the front, and stand near the speakers (okay, sit eventually - they did play for a long time). Jefferson Airplane at Winterland (did they ever play in tune?) Quicksilver Messenger Service, The Byrds, lots of others.

One of my favorites was The Youngbloods (with Jesse Colin Young) at the Family Dog. Another I remember was Tim Buckley at Winterland supporting the Mothers of Invention. Tim played the bagpipes for his part of the concert, about three quarters of an hour. That's all he did. I may have been the only person at the gig who thought this was, well, a little unusual.

None of these were as loud as an earlier concert in Melbourne at Festival Hall in 1966 when Bob Dylan was doing his first electric tour with a band who later became The Band. This concert was louder than any I heard during my time in San Francisco. But not the loudest ever.

Okay, this isn’t loud or electric, but I was at Madison Square Garden on 1 August 1971, in the fourth row for the Bangladesh Concert. Rumors were rife that Dylan would appear, but no one knew for sure until he walked out onto the stage toward the end of the concert. [7:00 minutes]

Peter goes on…

In 1971 I went to a concert in the Melbourne Town Hall with a lovely lady who later became my wife (briefly). We went to see Daddy Cool (still my favorite Australian band). Last on the bill was Billy Thorpe and the Aztecs. They came on and after two songs we decided to leave rather than suffer immediate deafness.

The Melbourne Town Hall was built during the gold rush in Victoria and is made from bluestones, each a metre square. This concert was in the basement and when we emerged on to Swanston Street, Billy was still louder than the Grateful Dead a foot from the speakers.

You’ll understand what Peter is talking about when Billy gets to the instrumental bridge of this tune, Most People I Know. Turn down your speakers. [8:21 minutes]

Peter again…

Alas, Billy is no longer with us. He died of a heart attack a couple of years ago at the age of sixty. He wrote a couple of entertaining memoirs of his life in rock music. One chapter was called "Billy Killed the Fish". This recounts a concert in a club that had an aquarium along one wall. His music was so loud the pressure of it killed all the fish.

My initial statement is not quite correct. Led Zeppelin played at Kooyong in the early seventies. This was the site of the Australian Tennis Open for lots of years until the Europeans decided they didn't want another grass court tournament (as the Australians and Americans kept winning them) so the Open was moved to a vast complex on the banks of the Yarra River (home to rock concerts too when tennis is not played there).

I lived about ten kilometres from Kooyong and, as it was a balmy summer evening, I sat out on my balcony and listened to the show. I caught the Rolling Stones the same way. I can't imagine either played louder than Billy though.

To wind up today’s Elder Music, here is Peter’s (still) favorite Australian band, Daddy Cool, performing Eagle Rock in 1971 (notable for the fashion of the era too.) [3:44 minutes]

Unlike Peter, I'd never thought about the loudest concert I ever attended, but I did have a funny, age-related experience to loud rock. A couple of years after I had turned 40, a friend, who was about my age and was producing a television show about the band, Kiss, invited me to go along when she attended one of their concerts at the Palladium in New York City.

As we handed over our tickets, the extraordinarily large "enforcer" at the entrance who was also extraordinarily young, pointed us toward the ladies room and suggested we get some bathroom tissue to stuff in our ears. He had not so advised the teens who had been in front of us in line.