Saturday 16 August, 1975 was quite a day.
The whole summer had been something of a musical awakening for me. Just out of elementary school, I’d discovered artists and whole genres that were altogether new and foreign to me. Sick of the mechanical rotation of Top 40 radio, I started listening to our local FM station, fascinated by the long, weird songs they were playing (which appealed to teenagers 5-10 years older than me, verboten terrain) and the zen reflections of the attending DJs. All of my gift, allowance and paper-route money was now going toward beefing up my LP collection, which now boasted Zeppelin, Dylan, Grand Funk Railroad, Elton John, The Who and other big-boy A&R.
Live concerts were The Final Frontier. I was goin’ in.
Big talker. I have a brother, three years my senior and wellnigh one of those teenagers to whom the parents could entrust me. BTO was the band (oh, quit snickering), and it would be the first concert for both of us.
I had no expectations. I knew their music well (my chaperone and housemate had all four of their releases). I knew they were going to be playing on a stage in front of an arenaful of people (sports capacity 18,000). But that was about it. I’d never heard the term ‘lightshow’ and I had no idea what an ‘opening act’ was, or why there would even be one [ed. I don’t recall one for this show]. I also had no idea what kind of people would be in the audience. I was worried that I wasn’t going to be allowed in, ticket or not. What if I forgot some of the words to the songs, would the Hippies notice? Mostly, I was just praying that I’d be close enough to the stage to be able to hear anything. Read that last sentence again.
Well, I got my fucking head blown off.
In the first place, I couldn’t believe the size of the stage and how much stuff there was on and around it. I mean, there’s just four guys in the band: why the whole military installation? And what were the drums doing all the way up there?
I was struck by the other concertgoers. Fully everyone was older than me, indeed, most were older than my brother too. I wondered how the people next to us could afford tickets if they were so poor that all three of them had to share a single, tiny, hand-made cigarette (which didn’t smell anything like the expensive tobacco my father smoked). There were no grownup-aged people there, and everybody seemed impossibly festive. It felt like there were no rules. I liked that.
Some 20 worrisome minutes after the scheduled time, the arena lights began to fail. As each successive bank of houselights blipped out, my heart sank as I supposed that perhaps the late start was due to electrical problems which now resulted in a power failure. That’s what you get for deploying too much gear.
But the crowd roared in unison, making a sound I’d never heard before at any sports event or other large gathering. It was hysterical, terrifying, intoxicating, and it seemed to go on forever and get louder with each passing second. I hope they quiet down, I thought to myself, or I won’t be able to hear a note. Throughout the arena, people raised lighters in a cosmic, cultish, universal salute. I felt like I was roaring through the night sky.
I saw some movement on the the stage, but nothing and no one I could recognize; it was still mostly a blackout. Then a voice filled the arena: “Please welcome… BACHMAN! TURNER!! OOOOVERDRIIIIIIIIVE!!!”.
‘Let it Ride’ began with a really, really loud guitar hook before the rest of the band thundered in. The wall of sound was absolutely unbelievable, the loudest acoustic phenomenon I’d ever heard. The bright mosaic of multi-coloured lights created an impossible spectacle: from so high above the stage and through the accumulated smoke in the arena, the columns appeared to be shining from the heavens above. Best, the performing figures onstage were larger than life, god-like, and the songs I’d heard countless times in forme-concrete from the point of a stylus were now alive in a way I could never have imagined. Carried away senseless, I’d crossed some line where the real world ended and Narnia began.
What thrilled me so much was not knowing where the other end of that string was. Where was the boundary of a world that was already beyond my imagination? What kind of immersive experiences were waiting for me? What kind of power does this lawless marriage of sight, sound, colour, movement and energy threaten?
I could never have known that on that very same Saturday 16 August, 1975 another event began to unfold an ocean away that would hold the answer…
