By Robert Santelli
The largest crowd that ever gathered for a rock festival did so at Watkins Glen,
New York, in July of 1973. Outdrawing the previous high at Woodstock almost two
to one, more than 600,000 young people sardined themselves into Watkins Glen
Grand Prix Raceway for a single-day festival known as the Summer Jam. Featured
groups were the Grateful Dead, the Allman Brothers, and the Band.
Many historians claimed that the Watkins Glen even was the largest gathering of
people in the history of the United States. In essence, that meant that on July
28, one out of every 350 people living in America at the time was listening to
the sounds of rock at the New York state racetrack. Considering that most of
those who attended the even hailed from the Northeast, and that the average age
of those present was approximately seventeen to twenty-four, close to one out of
every three young people from Boston to New York was at the festival.
And yet, aside from the stupendous attendance figures, the musical and social
significance of the even was minimal compared to, say, Woodstock or even
Altamont. Watkins Glen is more important for what it *wasn't*.
It was not a history-making event, in a strict musical sense. Unlike Woodstock, where the lineup consisted of close to thirty acts, Watkins Glen's billing was
comprised of only three supergroups. The Allman Brothers, the Band, and the
Grateful Dead were established acts (the latter two were Woodstock veterans);
all had been on the touring circuit and in the recording studios for at least
three years. The groups' fans, perhaps the most dedicated around in 1973, had
most likely seen them perform live at least once or twice prior to Watkins Glen.
They had come to expect certain things from the musicians. In short, there was
no overly excited rush to the stage generated by their mere presence at Watkins
Glen.
Each of the three groups at Watkins Glen played unusually long sets. The
Grateful Dead performed for five hours, the Allman Brothers for four, and the
Band for three, including a thirty-minute break due to a thunderstorm. Woodstock
had had a continuous change of musical formats and styles. Each time a new act
stepped out in front of the massive crowd, a revitalization occurred, creating a
renewal of faith in the event and in the power of music. Energy was forced to
flow.
At Watkins Glen a feeling of monotony and tedium constantly challenged the
viewers' interest in the music and the proceedings onstage. Long, winding solos
were frequent. The heat, the lack of comfort, and the crowded conditions dulled
otherwise stirring moments. Many of the 600,000 could barely see the stage, let
alone the musicians. And most important, festivalgoers had only one day to soak
up the rock-festival aura. Many in attendance were often too busy doing and
seeing other things to bother to listen seriously to the music for extended
periods of time.
Woodstock also had had two sets of LPs and a movie to carry on its significance.
No such enduring properties came out of Watkins Glen. Although the Grateful Dead
and the Allman Brothers Band had their own sound people record their sets, the
Dead would not give their consent to a Watkins Glen album. Their participation
was crucial, since they represented over one third of the music and time
performed onstage. CBS shot some footage of the event, but the Dead refused to
allow it or any other film to be released commercially. Their unyielding
position on the matter stemmed all the way back to Monterey, when the band had
refused to participate in D.A. Pennebaker's film of the event, "Monterey Pop."
The Dead had always demanded full editorial control of their music and live
performances. Whenever they were denied such power, they simply declined to be
part of the project.
Watkins Glen did not register with the political portion of the youth culture as
had some festivals in the past. To have 600,000 young people at one time in one
place would have been the ultimate dream for any sixties radical. But that was
just it -- the sixties were over. The Vietnam War was over; the peace agreement
had been signed in January of that year. Not that there was a lack of issues.
Watkins Glen could easily have been an immensely powerful response to Nixon and
the Watergate scandal. But the youth of the nation had grown tired of being
politically active. Many had tasted the partial delight of seeing some peace in
Southeast Asia and felt it was enough. The word most commonly associated with
the Watkins Glen festival, according to those reporters who covered the event,
was "party." For some young people Watkins Glen was an opportunity to experience
a rock festival in abbreviated fashion, and they relished every minute of it.
All this added up to the fact that the protests, the placards, the defiance, and
the true revolutionary zeal of the young had actually subsided. Enter the "me"
decade. The 1970s had finally arrived.
But Watkins Glen did point out that rock music was alive and well, and that
there still remained within the youth culture a seemingly unquenchable desire to
attend rock festivals. Young people still marveled at the power of such
gatherings. Young people *wanted* to be there, had to be there.
Shelly Finkel and Jim Koplik, the two promoters of Summer Jam, had been
producing rock concerts in Connecticut and had established a regular audience.
In 1972 they staged a series of shows in Hartford, one of which was a Grateful
Dead concert. During their performance members of the Allman Brothers Band who
were backstage were invited to come out for an informal jam. The reception they
received from the Deadhead-dominated crowd was lavish and striking.
Finkel and Koplik loved what they saw and heard. The promoters talked with
members of the Dead and the Allman Brothers to see if they were interested in a
large outdoor concert that would feature the two bands performing separately and
then, at the conclusion, merging for one spectacular, memorable jam. The
promoters added that the profits could be astronomical for all involved if a
large enough concert site was chose. Both bands were very interested.
Finkel and Koplik searched high and low for an appropriate site. The Pocono
International Raceway was considered, but when the promoters heard of the
availability of the Watkins Glen Grand Prix Raceway, they immediately made plans
to talk with raceway officials there. Both the town of Watkins Glen and the
racetrack management were accustomed to handling large crowds, and since the
event was to be a one-day affair, few obstacles prevented a contract from being
signed. Finkel and Koplik promised to limit ticket sales to 150,000. Privately,
raceway officials doubted whether the rock promoters could sell even 100,000
tickets. But more power to them. They had certainly paid a considerable sum to
rent the facilities for the day.
In order to fill out the remainder of the billing, Koplik and Finkel suggested
that another band or performer, perhaps Leon Russell, be added to the show. The
Dead and the Allmans both agreed to the concept but felt that the Band would be
more appropriate than Russell. Besides, they were local New York State boys from
the Woodstock area and had a more concentrated Northeastern following than Leon
Russell. The Band was approached with the idea and quickly signed a contract.
Two weeks prior to the festival more than 100,000 tickets at $10 each had been
sold. The promoters secured permission to put on sale an additional 25,000
tickets the day of the show, since it was obvious that many more people than
were originally anticipated would show up. Watkins Glen was to be the first huge
rock music event in New York to be produced since the state passed the Mass
Gathering Code following Woodstock. Koplik and Finkel adhered to the stringent
rules in a precise, almost religious manner. More than one thousand portable
toilets were rented and twelve wells were dug to increase the racetrack's water
supplies, in addition to strategically locating more than a thousand gallon jugs
of mountain spring water throughout the grounds. The promoters even ordered
300,000 premoistened paper towelettes, although no one could figure out what
real value they would have to a rock festival. A makeshift heliport was also
built.
Henry Valent, president of the Watkins Glen Grand Prix Corporation, was
impressed. Jim Koplik and Shelly Finkel seemed to be real professionals. Watkins
Glen would not be like those other rock festivals he had read about. It would be
different, he thought. It would be a first-class operation.
People began arriving a full week before the festival. Many thumbed their way in
or drove campers or vans early to select an ideal camping location. On the
Tuesday before the show, the first thirty ticket gates opened. Rather than have
the young people mill about the town, the promoters and Valent agreed to open up
a bit early. But there was cause for consternation. Summer Jam, as it was
called, was supposed to be a one-day affair. Sure, promoters and track officials
had realized that many would show up early. That's why they had prepared
sizeable campgrounds. But not *this* early. And not this many.
The crowd grew. On Wednesday the New York State police estimated fifty thousand
people were at Watkins Glen. On Thursday the approximation more than doubled. By
Friday afternoon they were certain that a full quarter of a million kids had
made camp in or near the festival grounds. The troopers recalled Woodstock and
the nightmarish traffic problems. This was worse. Cars sitting in traffic
stretched back almost fifty miles, while the impact of it all could be felt one
hundred miles away. They began turning back young people with or without
tickets. There was no doubt about it. Summer Jam was going to be bigger than
Woodstock. Much bigger.
A sound check was scheduled for Friday. Bill Graham's FM Productions had been
contracted to employ the Digital Audio Delay Line system, a computerized sound
system designed so that people sitting up front and near the towers of speakers
would not be blasted into the universe. It also enabled people sitting way in
the back to hear the music just as clearly as those closer to the stage. With
such a system, sets of speakers are set up a hundred yards apart. The first set
of speakers receives the sound from the stage and relays it back to the second
set. This set rebounds the sound to the third set. All this occurs with spit-
second precision. It is not discernible to the human ear that there is a
microlapse in the sound. For both the sound check and the actual concert, the
system worked like a charm.
When the Grateful Dead went to do their sound check, more than 100,000 of the
250,000 people present at Watkins Glen were already assembled in front of the
stage. Graham suggested what the hell, might as well start the concert early.
The Dead consented, and the sound check turned into a two-hour set with a few
interruptions to balance out the wall of sound. The Band and the Allman Brothers
felt compelled to do likewise. They delivered one-hour and two-hour sets,
respectively. In all, a five-hour prefestival performance disguised as a sound
check.
After it was over Jim Koplik sat himself in a chair in the backstage trailer and
remarked to Finkel, "I'm beat. I feel like everything is over and we actually
pulled this off."
Finkel nodded and broke a tired smile.
"I can't believe, though, that wasn't the real thing. Tomorrow is the real
thing. Tomorrow is the concert. We have to do it all over again, for at least
twice as long and probably for twice as many people."
Koplik glanced over at his partner. Shelly Finkel had fallen into a deep sleep.
The Grateful Dead returned shortly before noon on Saturday to officially open
Summer Jam in front of 600,000 people stretched out over every available inch of
raceway property. There was the usual threat of rain, but no dark clouds were in
sight. Instead the sun shone brightly as the heat grew to noticeable but still
tolerable proportions. Stretched out across the ninety-acre grassy knoll that
faced the stage was a youthful, exuberant sea of humanity. It was an awesome,
emotional sight. And it was scary. What if... But negative thoughts were set
aside.
The Grateful Dead played and played and played. For five hours Jerry Garcia
smoothly rolled out solos like only Jerry Garcia could do. Bob Weir backed him
up on rhythm guitar, filling in and closing up weak areas and balancing out a
generally tender sound. Phil Lesh on bass and Bill Kreutzman on drums provided
Garcia with takeoff and landing strips. Donna Godchaux sang, and her husband,
Keith, added bits and pieces on keyboards. "Uncle John's Band," "Casey Jones,"
"Friend of the Devil," "Ripple," "Sugar Magnolia," "Truckin'," "Not Fade Away,"
"Me and Bobby McGee." They kept comin'.
It took little over an hour for the stage crew to disassemble the Dead's
equipment and ready the area for the Band's set. Out in the crowd things were
good considering the multitude of people. There was a marked decrease in the use
of hard drugs and hallucinogens at Watkins Glen, although there were plenty of
dealers on hand and pot was everywhere. The ground was littered with empty
bottles of Jack Daniel's and Southern Comfort, signs of the large increase in
the consumption of hard liquor.
There was an abundance of food and water available, and most of the portable
toilets seemed to be functioning, but the lines to use the facilities and the
trek getting there were the real problems. A round trip to and from a Port-O-
San, including a very brief stay inside it, could take more than three hours.
For the sluggish or the stoned, it was like five.
The sun had been overtaken by a series of ominous, dark stormclouds by the time
the Band began to crank it up. Not quite an hour into their set, the rain,
thunder, and lightning all struck with alarming might. The Band was forced from
the stage to wait it out. Thirty minutes later the storm passed, leaving behind
600,000 wet bodies and -- what else -- mud. Prior to the storm, however, four
skydivers had jumped from a circling Cessna, intending to land somewhere on the
festival grounds. All of them carried colorful flares to mark both the success
of the event and their downward path. The crowd cheered them on as they
gradually assumed a shape in the sky. But something had gone wrong up there for
one of the chutists. Seconds into his freefall, one of the skydivers' flares
prematurely exploded and ignited his garments. Helplessly falling downward, the
diver managed to open his chute as the flames engulfed his suit and body. It was
a terrible way to die.
The Band's set lost much of its impact after the storm's interruption. Many
people returned to the campsites to cook up some supper and put on dry clothes.
Others began the journey back home. But the Band played on -- free-flowing,
countrified rock with traditional foundations. The instrumentation was defined
and exact; the delivery, sharp and authoritative. The Band represented the
antithesis of slickness in the summer of '73. None of their music was souped up
or hammered out via record-company formulas. Robbie Robertson, Garth Hudson,
Levon Helm, Rick Danko, and Richard Manuel offered to rock what the poppish,
syrupy bands could not: unadulterated, unpatterned, unmistakable music.
Finally it was the Allman Brothers' turn. The Brothers had the reputation of
rarely putting on a less-than-dazzling performance. The high-quality
compositions and the arousing artistic competency of the band resisted mediocre
displays. Dickie Betts had fully assumed the role left vacant by Duane Allman's
death. It was a big order to fill, but Betts was just coming into his own. He
was confident and, most important, aggressive. He and Gregg Allman were the
stars and the leaders that dictated the group's direction. In terms of
comparison, neither the Dead nor the Band measured up to the overall ebullience
of the Allmans. With the song, "In Memory of Elizabeth Reed," it all came
together nicely.
It was two o'clock in the morning. The crowd had shrunk considerably, but, as
promised, the event would conclude with an all-out jam. Not all the members of
the Dead and the Band came out, and realistically, there were too many tired
musicians for anything truly memorable to result. More solos. Some basic blues.
The last song was a spirited if not overly effective version of Chuck Berry's
"Johnny B. Goode."
Watkins Glen had stolen the headlines much the same way that Woodstock had four
years before, but with much less intensity and drama and for a much shorter
period of time. In the NEW YORK TIMES Grace Lichtenstein described the Watkins
Glen even as she had seen it:
...At times the scene in the moist darkness resembled a Bosch
painting -- half naked bodies coated with brown slime, moving
rhythmically to the music amid huddled figures curled sleeping
in the mud at their feet in barbiturate or alcohol induced
stupors.
The overall success and incredible turnout at Watkins Glen prompted other rock
promoters to think seriously about staging single-day rock festivals. Rock-
concert production was steadily growing more sophisticated and professional,
and many of the new concepts employed in them were carried over into festival
production. This was ultimately accomplished at the expense of the rich,
unconstrained, natural improvisations that had made past festivals exciting for
the festivalgoers and the media and precariously unstable for the promoters,
the local townsfolk, and the police. By 1974 the evolution of the rock festival
had finally caught up with the technological, impersonal mid-1970s.
Out in California a former rock manager, Lenny Stogel, went to ABC television
after hearing about Watkins Glen with plans for a similar event on the West
Coast. He asked the network if they would be interested in financing and
filming a single-day rock festival produced at the Ontario Motor Speedway in
southern California. Stogel told ABC officials that he intended to bring in
eight or nine topnotch recording acts for a twelve-hour concert. He had figured
out, he told them, the ways to make it run smoothly, without the problems
encountered at Watkins Glen or any of the other festivals.
ABC listened and liked what they heard. They put Sandy Feldman, vice-president
in charge of live events, on the job. Together, he and Stogel were to complete
plans for what would later be called Cal Jam.
Even though two previous rock concerts held at the Ontario Motor Speedway had
been near financial disasters, Stogel felt certain that it was the ideal place
for Cal Jam. Its accessibility was perfect; two highways bordered the
speedway -- the San Bernadino and the Pomona major roads. It was also located
within driving range of Los Angeles, San Diego, and all of Orange County.
Southern California ranked with the New York metropolitan area as possessing
the most voracious rock appetite in all of America. Ontario had parking for
fifty thousand cars and was far enough away from any immediate population
centers so that traffic would not be catastrophic. Ontario was the place.
At first Stogel and Feldman hoped to lure either Led Zeppelin, the Band, or the
Rolling Stones into signing contracts. But this never materialized due to the
awesome fees of the supergroups. The promoters next went to proven stars such
as Emerson, Lake and Palmer; Black Sabbath; and Deep Purple to headline the
show, backed up by Black Oak Arkansas; Seals and Crofts; Rare Earth; the
Eagles; and Earth, Wind and Fire. Admittedly the lineup was not spectacular,
but the promoters counted more on the "event" rather than the groups to attract
a big crowd to Ontario. Many people out on the West Coast had not participated
in Watkins Glen. Cal Jam would be their chance.
In order to prevent the problems that had dominated rock festivals in the past,
Stogel felt that the audience must be totally captivated for the entire twelve
hours of the show. Once the kids grew restless, the event was in trouble. Keep
them busy, keep them seated, make them feel they would miss something important
and interesting if they didn't pay attention. That, according to Stogel, was
the key to success.
The promoters hired Imero Fiorentino to design the stage, which he conceived as
a complex structure of hydraulic lifts and movable platforms built on railroad
tracks. This way, as one band on one platform finished its set, another act on
another platform was ready and waiting to be slid into the spotlight. A maximum
lapse of fifteen minutes was all that was to be tolerated. Due to the excessive
amount of equipment used by Emerson, Lake and Palmer, a separate platform was
constructed for the English trio. Throughout the day skydivers, stunt men,
skateboarders, and other entertainers would keep the audience occupied.
Cal Jam occurred on Saturday, April 6, 1974, and drew 200,000 fans paying $1O a
ticket. The gross of $2 million was one of the largest in the history of rock.
ABC filmed it and televised the concert on their "In Concert" series. It had
all gone so smoothly. Rare Earth, the opening act, took the stage fifteen
minutes *ahead* of schedule. The crowd was orderly. There were very few drug
problems and almost no gate-crashers. They expected 200,000 to attend and
that's exactly the number of people that showed up. So structured. So
systemized. So calculated.
There were mixed reactions to Cal Jam. Most marveled at the precision and
organization. The event was the epitome of efficiency. The media dubbed it a
computerized rock festival. Others, however, looked upon it with disappointment.
There was no room for creativity or a do-your-own-thing attitude. The musicians
were forced to perform in a machinelike fashion. No excitement; too predictable.
Boring.
During an interview in June of 1979, just a few weeks before his death in
Chicago in a DC-10 plane crash, Lenny Stogel recalled Cal Jam.
"When I knew I was putting on a show for 200,000 young people, I didn't want
anything popping off unexpected. I wanted to be in total control and know
exactly what was happening that moment and what would be happening in the next
few hours. Two hundred thousand kids was a big responsibility. I used to get a
funny feeling in my stomach whenever I thought about it. I had to be in
control -- for the preservation of my sanity."
The financial achievements of Cal Jam necessitated a sequel to the event; thus
another Cal Jam was held in March of 1978. It was basically a repeat of the
original formula: efficiency plus organization equals success and big bucks.
Instead of 200,000, Cal Jam II attracted 250,000. It was held at the same
location and produced by the same promoters. It was filmed for television, and
this time an album also resulted from the concert.
The lineup was once again less than outstanding. Actually the billing reflected
the stagnation that had gripped rock, especially mainstream rock, at the time.
It also revealed that the younger portion of the vast rock audience was not
really bothered by the situation. Only Santana, Dave Mason, and to a lesser
extent, Heart, played music reminiscent in style to the old festival sets. Most
of the other bands uncorked a numbing, combustible orgy of manic power that
bullied its way through the speakers. Hard rock was being abused: it was being
exploited for its colorful audacity more than anything else. Aerosmith and Ted
Nugent blitzed the crowd with frenzied and furious energy. Mahogany Rush and
Rubicon tried to follow suit but failed. Bob Welch had members from Fleetwood
Mac come to his aid.
The festival spirit was only superficially present at Cal Jam II. Some members
of the crowd clutched to remaining threads of the past, while a few of the
performers tried to simulate an emotion vaguely remembered by the older members
of the crowd. Rock had become big business, and festivals like Cal Jam were, to
many, just big-business ventures.
The performers had their choice of either being helicoptered from the Beverly
Hills Hotel to the festival grounds or chauffeured there in lavish, customized
vans with paintings of the same band's latest album cover on the exterior
panels. Backstage requests were ludicrous in many cases. Some performers wanted
pinball machines for their amusement. Others required specially prepared dishes.
One band wanted plates of M&Ms placed in their dressing rooms, but no yellow
ones were to be included. As a result, a Cal Jam employee had to sift through
the mounds of candy, separating the yellows from the rest.
Cal Jam I and II were hybrid forms of the old rock festival phenomenon. Cal
Jam's promoters sought to present a festival to the atmosphere in a highly
regulated and supervised environment. Eight or nine years back a rock festival
would have smothered under such conditions, but for the late seventies it was
the right way to handle such events. It was easy to determine the differences
that existed between an outdoor rock concert and an outdoor rock festival. It
was also easy to comprehend that in terms of rock music and rock events, 1968
and 1978 were really and truly a full decade apart.
- Excerpted from "Aquarius Rising: The Concert Festival Years" by Robert
Santelli (New York: Delta Books, 1980).
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