Blogs | Rock Around the Town
50 Greatest Concerts in San Diego History 1917 - 2005
By Jay Allen Sanford | Posted October 9, 2008, 4:55 p.m.
Revised 10-9: Historic local shows
1 - Fifty Historic Local Concerts: 1917 thru 2005 (revised/updated 10-9-08)
2 - The Day Nirvana Played Off the Record (10-24-91): The Inside Story, from interviews with OTR staff
3 - The Day Jimi Hendrix Came to Town (5-24-69): The Inside Story, from interviews with Hendrix bassist Noel Redding
4 - The Day Brian Wilson Got Busted in Balboa Park as a Vagrant (June 1978)
5 - Why Mexicans Hated Elvis
FIFTY HISTORIC SAN DIEGO CONCERTS: 1917 thru 2005
2-28-17 – Blues legend Jelly Roll Morton played a San Diego gig on this date, according to Morton biographers and Sandiegoconcertarchive.com. Several historians speculate that this concert, at an unnamed local venue, led to an offer of steady gigs in L.A., prompting Morton to relocate to the west coast in summer 1917.
In 1921, Morton was performing regularly at the Kansas City Bar in Tijuana. Two of his most revered songs were written there: “The Pearls” and "Kansas City Stomp," named after the bar. According to Dead Man Blues author Phil Pastras, “His trips to San Diego and south of the border had something to do with the Hollywood crowd as well, especially after prohibition set in. That is where the crowd would go to drink and party. They had a race track, and gambling and booze was legal, so that is where the crowd went.” San Diego had outlawed cabaret dancing in 1917 and the U.S. ban on alcoholic drinks was launched in 1920.
In 1921, Morton and a small orchestra were scheduled to perform at the U.S. Grant Hotel. Band member Dink Johnson later claimed the band was fired by the hotel management, because Morton sat at the piano and played with his legs crossed, ostensibly offending white patrons. Morton, however, later told an interviewer that he cancelled the gig himself, after finding out an all-white band playing at the Hotel was being paid twice the fee his band had been offered.
(Morton’s Mexican visa, courtesy Henry Villalapando Ford collection)
4-4-56 and 4-5-56 – Elvis Presley: "This is the first time that the Hancock is going to rock and roll, while still in anchor!" The titular host of NBC's Milton Berle Show [aka Texaco Star Theater] introduced Elvis Presley to a live audience on the deck of the aircraft carrier USS Hancock, docked at the Naval Station in San Diego bay. Presley's first-ever California performance included "Heartbreak Hotel" (on its way to becoming his first #1 hit) and a few others. The singer gamely acknowledged the raging controversy about his "shocking" onstage pelvic gyrations by taking part in a comedy sketch. Presley introduced Berle, dressed as Elvis (world's first Elvis impersonator?), saying "Mah twin brother, Melvin Presley." Berle/Melvin then takes credit for all the hip-wiggling, saying "I gave him his singing style - I used to drop grasshoppers down his pants."
Elvis' sexually-charged "singing style" was no joke to San Diego police, however. The next two nights, both of Presley's concerts at the San Diego Arena on 8th and Harbor Drive (aka Glacier Garden ) were sold out and police presence was heavy. Over both evenings, several young women were removed from the Arena, reportedly for "hysterical and lewd behavior." The Shore Patrol had to set up a floating blockade behind the venue, after two teen girls in their underwear and carrying soaked dresses emerged from the water to make a run for Presley's dressing room (they were caught by police and released, presumably after their garments dried). Three people were arrested.
"Some girls broke into the bathroom of Elvis's dressing room and stole the toilet seat," recalled KCBQ disc jockey Don Howard in a 1979 interview with localKicks Magazine. "His Cadillac was covered with obscene messages, and two sailors were arrested for masturbating during the show from watching the antics.... After the concert, the police arrested 12 girls running nude through the halls of the El Cortez Hotel, looking for Elvis.”
“I introduced him [to the stage],” says longtime local DJ Happy Hare Martin, “and he rushed out and sang the first chorus of Hound Dog, which I could not hear above their primal screams. Then…he began wiggling and rotating his pelvis. This is when half the girls lost control of their bladders.”
Martin had been with Elvis backstage in the hours leading up to the show. “Elvis was a blonde,” he says. “I kept his secret for many years, until I learned that he had been outed…When I entered the dressing room, I was flustered to see that the King had no clothes. He was pacing buck naked in the dressing room…Seeing me, he grabbed his gold Lamé suit and covered himself. Too late. I had caught him.”
“In contrast to his black head of hair was a golden wheat-colored tuft [down below]. Yep, he was a natural blonde, alright. ‘You ain’t gonna tell nobody, are ya?’ he asked, almost pleading. I nodded a firm no, and that was that. I later learned that Tony Curtis was his idol. He regarded Tony as the ultimate babe magnet, so he dyed his hair raven black, just like Tony's…the kid obviously did not realize that his hair could have been [turd brown], and it would not have mattered.”
Ticket sales for the two 1956 concerts (with his new backing band the Jordanaires) reportedly totaled $17,250, with 11,250 fans attending. The day after the second San Diego date -- April 6 -- Presley signed a seven-year movie deal with Paramount. Three weeks later, "Heartbreak Hotel" hit number one.
When Presley was scheduled to return to the Arena June 6, Police Chief Adam Elmer Jansen (the city's longest-serving Chief, at 14 years) had had enough. "If he puts on the same kind of show that he did last April, I'll arrest him for disorderly conduct," he was quoted saying in the Union (repeated nationwide after newswires picked up the story). "I've had enough complaints from parents to assure me that twerp is not doing the kids any good." Late in the year, the city Social Services Department held a series of hearings, to discuss whether Presley should be banned from playing in San Diego .
Presley escaped town without being arrested or banned and in fact returned years later to pack them in for three more sold-out performances, after Police Chief Jansen retired - November 15, 1970 (ticket sales 14,659), April 26, 1973 (15,050 attendees) and April 24, 1976 (17,500 attendees).
9-58: Ritchie Valens had two hits on the charts -- "La Bamba" and "Donna" -- when longtime local DJ Harry "Happy Hare" Martin persuaded him to perform at the 1958 opening of Clairemont High School.
“The Principal called and asked me to do something for the new kids,” Martin told me in March 2008. “I was full of myself in those days. I said ‘Sure’ and got on the phone…I took it for granted that he [Valens] knew me, and I asked him about coming down to San Diego to sing for the new school. No mention of money. He immediately said yes, no doubt thinking that anyone this audacious must be important.”
“There was no opposition from the school, all were thrilled that I could get someone with two or three songs on the Hit Parade.” When Hare picked up Valens at the airport, the rising rock star emerged from the plane with his guitar slung around his neck and carrying a small amp. “At the school, all of the students were in the yard, because they were still painting the new auditorium. Ritchie didn’t seem to mind. He sang two songs that I recall, ‘Donna’ and ‘La Bamba,’ and some other newer songs, all on the red clay, in the broiling sun, for the better part of an hour.”
“Many kids broke into impromptu dancing and that egged Ritchie on. Him playing, and them dancing and celebrating, [it was] a musical fiesta. A South L.A. Latino kid, connecting with 2,000 young Anglos…it was historic. No autographs or pictures…things were more structured in those days.”
Valens was literally on the brink of superstardom as he flew back to L.A. that evening. “If it had been a couple of months later,” says Hare, “I would have had to put him up in an expensive hotel and paid him a lot of bucks. But, that day, he was just a simple kid wanting to help.” Valens perished in the same February 1959 plane crash that also killed Buddy Holly and the Big Bopper.
1961: Johnny Cash at Bostonia Ballroom, El Cajon - The story of Johnny Cash walking into a local club in 1961 to play a surprise set with a group of local pickup players has been hotly disputed. It supposedly happened at El Cajon's Bostonia Ballroom (aka Red Mill, El Amigo, Club 911, Marco Polo, and most recently known as the troubled Royal Palace). El Cajon's mayor Mark Lewis has been quoted saying Cash did the unannounced show there, among other locals making claiming this happened.
However, according to Eldonna Lay, author of an El Cajon book of history and curator of the Knox House Museum, it never occurred. Now it turns out that Iron Butterfly co-founder Danny Weis (one of the guys who quit the band before their first album came out) has photos of his father's band backing up Cash at the Bostonia, to back up his story of how it came to happen. Some of the pics include the Bostonia's owner at the time, Smokey Rogers, which seems a fair indication that they were indeed taken at the place and date Weis provided.
Still unconfirmed is the rumored (and far less likely) Elvis appearance at the Bostonia, in the audience rather than onstage, cited repeatedly by Mayor Lewis but also debunked Eldonna Lay (this time I suspect correctly).
6-30-65: Jerry Lee Lewis played downtown's Convention Hall, earning himself a "stern warning" from a "top local cop" because he allegedly violated city municipal code 33.1593: "It is unlawful for any musician or entertainer performing at a teenage dance to mingle with or physically contact the patrons." Lewis later told Goldmine magazine, "A couple of ladies, I don't know who they were or how old they were, they came up onstage and danced with me...when I came offstage, all of a sudden I was scared they'd run me out of town. This guy, he might've been the chief, he told me I could have been arrested."
7-21-65 – Sonny and Cher: When the duo performed the first of two nights at El Cajon's Power House (1550 North Magnolia Avenue), local radio was just beginning to play their single "I Got You, Babe," and they'd just made their first TV appearance on June 12 on American Bandstand. In a venue seating no more than 500 people, they performed the song, as well as several others from their upcoming debut album Look at Us (to be released that August). The majority of the set was made up of cover songs like "You've Really Got a Hold on Me" (the Miracles), "Then He Kissed Me" (written by Phil Spector for the Crystals), and "Unchained Melody" (by North and Zaret, most famously recorded by the Righteous Brothers).
The Power House date may have been their first performance of the Dylan song "All I Really Want to Do," which they'd just seen the Byrds perform in L.A. the previous week. Even though they knew the Byrds wanted to record it, Sonny -- who'd noted the Byrds' success redoing Dylan tunes -- convinced Cher to record the song for a solo release, and this version would hit stores first.
A week after the San Diego concerts, they were on TV again in the half-hour musical-variety show Where the Action Is, just as "I Got You Babe" closed in on Billboard's number-one chart spot, where it remained for three consecutive weeks. After an appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show later in the year, they were done with small venues. Their 1-21-66 appearance at San Diego's Convention Hall (202 C Street, downtown) reportedly sold out the same midsize room the Rolling Stones had barely filled the previous month (12-5-65, though that was an afternoon show).
8-28-65 – the Beatles: For the Beatles' one and only local appearance, at Balboa Stadium, radio station KCBQ declared that Saturday "Beatle Day" and gave out pins saying so to attendees. Four local teenagers won a contest to present ceremonial keys to the city to the band at an afternoon press conference.
(The Beatles being awarded the key to San Diego - hey, wake up, George!)
Area DJ "Happy Hare" (aka Harry Martin) recalled for Kicks Magazine that "Joan Baez was going to visit John Lennon [backstage], and she was caught up in the human riptide, because she was on the outside of the fence with all the kids. I literally lifted her up and pushed her over the fence. She eventually got backstage, but she came close to being crushed to death."
Local headlines the next day read "Beatles Quip at a Fast Clip" and "Ecstasy and Emotion: Beatles and Beatlemania Erupt." The band played around 40 minutes, with some of the show surreptitiously recorded by KGTV chief photographer Lee Louis, who smuggled in a 16mm film camera (a portion of his footage is posted on YouTube). Around 28,000 tickets were printed, priced at $3.50 and $5.50, though only about 18,000 were sold. The Beatles were reportedly paid $50,000, while promoters said their cut was around $6000.
The night before the San Diego gig, August 27th, the Beatles met Elvis Presley for the first time, spending around an hour in his Bel Air mansion. According to Disc Weekly at the time (9-4-65), Elvis jammed with the Beatles to a tune played on his jukebox. A member of Elvis' Memphic Mafia talked the Beatles into signing a piece of Elvis stationary, which is due to be auctioned with an opening bid of $50,000.
Helen Halmay interviewed the Beatles before their only San Diego concert. Halmay, who was 20 at the time, says she has a few regrets.
"Nobody who interviewed them asked for their autograph.... I had never been to a press conference before. I didn't know I didn't need tickets since I was with the press. After the press conference, we went out and went in through the gates. I thought, 'By God, if I bought tickets, I'm going to use them.' Do you know how much those tickets would be worth if I had saved them?"
What questions did reporters ask the Beatles? "People tended to ask them what they thought of San Diego. That was really dumb. They had never been here before, and they had just gotten off the bus. My one question was 'What's your favorite American TV show?' I think they said The Man from U.N.C.L.E."
Halmay, who was the society editor for the weekly La Mesa Scout, says she "asked my owner/editor/publisher if I could cover it. He said, 'None of our readers are interested in the Beatles.' " Halmay got permission to go (off the job) and bought her own film to take pictures.
"They are not very exciting. It just shows them sitting in a row at a table." She says all four were heavy smokers. "I guess I've forgotten how much people used to smoke in those days."
As it was with Balboa Stadium, Halmay says the La Mesa Scout "...never made it out of the '70s." (Some material for this capsule written by Ken Leighton)
(Beatles at San Diego press conference)
(The Rolling Stones in San Diego, with Misfits, etc. - photo from Kicks Magazine, 1979)
11-1-64: the Rolling Stones played an evening show at Balboa Park Bowl, after appearing that afternoon at Long Beach’s Civic Auditorium. Tickets cost $3.50, with the show starting at 5:00 p.m. Various acts opened, including local garage band the Misfits, featuring future Moby Grape singer/bassist Bob Mosley. “We played a lot of places around town,” he recalled in a 2005 interview, “but [the Stones show] was the biggest thing we’d done.”
At the time, the Misfits were signed to Imperial Records, whose roster included Ricky Nelson and Fats Domino. Their single “This Little Piggy,” released just before the Stones show, was appearing in Top 30 surveys for radio station KDEO - which hosted the Stones concert - as well as at KCBQ and KGB.
A backstage photo of the Stones mingling with various locals is reproduced here, featuring (top row from left) Ron Armstrong, Bill Wyman, Keith Richards, Earl Steely, Mick Jagger, Joey Page, Charlie Watts and Bob Mosley; (bottom row from left) Joel Scott Hill, an unidentified photographer, Harold Kirby and Eddy Dunn. Misfits members depicted are drummer Armstrong, rhythm guitarist Steely, bassist Mosley, and lead guitarist Dunn. Hill and Kirby were with the local Joel Scott Band. Page was an area singer, and the photo (published in Kicks Magazine in 1979) was taken by Misfits manager (and swimming pool salesman) Bob Herrington.
The Misfits split in 1965, after guitarist Earl Steely married and refused to tour. Bob Mosley joined Moby Grape, but hit on hard times after that band dissolved amidst years of lawsuits. “I was living in the bushes alongside a San Diego freeway in 1996,” he recalled in 2005, “when a friend picked me up and told me Judge Garcia in San Francisco had agreed to give the Moby Grape name back to the band, instead of the corporate suits.” The partially reformed Grape occasionally performs and records today.
The day after the San Diego show, the Rolling Stones recorded at RCA Studios in Hollywood for the first time. They taped the songs Pain in My Heart, Everybody Needs Somebody to Love, Hitch Hike, Heart of Stone, and Down Home Girl.
7-8-67: The Doors' debut album was still new when former Clairemont Longfellow Elementary School student Jim Morrison appeared with the band in his former hometown for the first time. His parents lived in Coronado, his father having just risen to the rank of rear admiral.
"North County band the Lyrics, Marsha and the Esquires, and two other bands started promptly at 8:30 p.m., for over 4000 fans," reports "Crasher" columnist Josh Board. "Unfortunately, with only one album out, it was a short set, with only a handful of songs."
Board points to Greg Shaw's book The Doors on the Road, which states, "...during 'Light My Fire,' two women leaped over the railing...and raced to the stage, briefly clutching Morrison's feet before being briskly escorted off by the police."
The Doors played three other San Diego concerts with Morrison; 11-4-67 and 6-29-68 at the Community Concourse and 8-22-70 at the Sports Arena (captured on the bootleg vinyl album Celebration). A 10-26-69 date at Balboa Stadium was canceled after Morrison was accused of exposing himself onstage in Miami.
After Morrison died, the Doors returned to Balboa Stadium -- 8-13-72 -- for a taped performance widely circulated among Doors concert collectors under titles like Turn Me On Dead Man and Breakin' through Balboa.
Jim Morrison backstage in San Diego
1-13-68 - The Turtles, the Byrds, Buffalo Springfield, the Stone Poneys, San Diego Sports Arena: "Although I loved the hits of the Turtles, I took umbrage at them getting top billing over the Byrds," remembers AcousticMusicSanDiego operator Carey Driscoll of this ten-band event. Buffalo Springfield refused to leave the stage after their two allotted songs, instead playing a full 30 minutes (irking organizers).
The Stone Poneys with Linda Ronstadt had Mike Nesmith's "Different Drum" on the charts and were about to put out their third album, though they would split up within two weeks of the San Diego show (one of their final concerts). The Byrds had released The Notorious Byrd Brothers just ten days before and were in the midst of lineup changes; though they'd lost David Crosby, the San Diego date was one of their first with eventual cult icon Gram Parsons.
The Turtles, touring behind their Golden Hits album, were at the peak of their powers and popularity. "One of the best sets I've seen to this day," recalls Driscoll. "Mark Volman and Howard Kaylan were energetic and entertaining.... Volman's antics included throwing his tambourine straight up into the rafters of the arena, doing spins and splits while it was up there, kicking it off the heel of his foot when it came down, grabbing it out of the air and hitting it, on the beat, in perfect timing with the next verse."
9-28-68: Big Brother and the Holding Company were scheduled to play a sold-out show at downtown's Community Concourse. The afternoon before the show, Janis Joplin announced to the press her intention to quit the band.
"I told you, you remember, that I was going to do a thing of my own," she wrote in a letter to her family dated the same day (and published by her sister in the book Love, Janis). "There'll be a whole lot of pressure because of the 'vibes' created by my leaving Big Brother and also how big I am now." (The band's album, Cheap Thrills, was number one on the Billboard charts, where it remained for eight weeks.)
Joplin explained in the letter that "It's to be set up [so] I'm a corporation called Fantality, which will hire all the musicians and pay all the bills. Much more responsibility, but also much more chance of making money for me as my price goes up.... Albert [Grossman, manager] told me -- are you ready? -- that I should make a half million next year, counting record royalties." Her final gig with Big Brother took place in San Francisco two months later.
3-29-69: Janis Joplin appeared at the Sports Arena for one of the first West Coast concerts with her new group, the Kozmic Blues Band. "Janis was flirting with a lethal combination of drugs, alcohol, and heroin," wrote Joplin's sister Laura of that period in her Love, Janis book.
"Linda Gravenites found Janis purple on the floor one day in March. At least she knew how to revive Janis from a heroin overdose.... The media pressure might have been one reason she gave herself for increasing her use of heroin."
Also in March '69, the New York Times magazine ran an article quoting Joplin: "Yeah, I know I might be going too fast. That's what a doctor said.... I don't go back to him anymore. Man, I'd rather have ten years of superhypermost [sic] than live to be seventy by sitting in some [expletive] chair watching TV."
Joplin and the Kozmic Blues Band appeared in San Diego one other time (October 4, '69), exactly one year before her death.
5-11-69: The Grateful Dead headlined SDSU's Spring Fling concert at the Aztec Bowl. Held on Mother's Day, the show included Canned Heat, Quicksilver Messenger Service, Lee Michaels, Tarantula, and Tijuana-bred Carlos Santana. Jerry Garcia performed "Morning Dew," and Ron "Pigpen" McKernan (four years before he died) sang lead on a 20-minute version of "Hard to Handle." Pigpen also fronted the band for "Good Lovin'," "Good Morning Little Schoolgirl," and "Turn on Your Love Light," the last highlighted by a jam with Santana's percussionists and singer.
One of Spring Fling's promoters was future mayor Roger Hedgecock, who at the time aspired to create a local concert scene similar to San Francisco's. "There was a lot of opposition from the city," he recalled in a 1980 interview with Kicks Magazine. "But all the predictions of total chaos and calamity did not come true." Hedgecock recruited the local chapter of the Hell's Angels to provide security, sealing the deal with a complimentary case of Jack Daniel's. "I got a note back from them thanking me for the case," according to Hedgecock. "They drank it all at one party."
Space was provided for arts-and-crafts exhibits, as well as a booth for the city's brand-new free clinic. "Even the Black Panthers had a booth," said Hedgecock. Much of the show was aired live on KPRI-FM, and tapes of the broadcast still circulate among tie-dyed and squinty-eyed collectors.
5-24-69 - The Jimi Hendrix Experience played one of its final gigs at the Sports Arena. Ticketless fans rushed the doors en masse, resulting in local headlines the next day reading "Police Arrest Gate Crashers" and " 'Music Lovers' Mar Hendrix Concert." Attendee J. Stuart recalled for the Reader website “What did happen as we were leaving was we encountered a very large group of riot squad sprinting towards us. One man fell down and I witnessed three riot police clubbing him with long riot sticks. I told the girl I was with to run for the car, and I escaped by climbing on the hood of a car and sprinting over many car hoods. It was a total downer after such a great concert.”
Backstage, Hendrix was interviewed by San Diego Free Press writer Jim Brodey. "At one point," according to Brodey, "the interview was interrupted by promoters and someone with a 'love medallion.' Top 40 radio station KCBQ had sponsored a contest in which entrants who had made the 'grooviest love medallion' would win a free ticket to the concert and present their love beads to Hendrix in person. Jimi, who knew nothing of the contest, refused to save face for the bumbling KCBQ and wouldn't see the winners."
When the Experience hit the stage just before 10 p.m., a professional crew recorded the entire concert. Hendrix told the audience, "You people down here are witnessing some really beautiful times. Like, groovy times you'll be telling your children and their children's children about, man. This is, like, the epicenter of where it's happening, right here in California. I just wanted you to know that, even though I think you know it already. Does it ever rain here? Would you care if it did? I didn't think so."
The 12-minute Arena version of "Red House" turns up on Hendrix in the West (Polydor/WB Reprise, 1972). A 1982 LP, Concerts, uses snippets of Hendrix's stage chatter spliced between live takes from other performances. The four-CD set Stages (Polydor/WB Reprise, 1991) has nearly the whole show, except for "Foxy Lady" (the feedback-heavy intro caused too much buzz on the master tape). A box set collection, The Jimi Hendrix Experience (Universal/MCA, 2000), features the San Diego version of "Red House," along with "Purple Haze" from the same show.
Just over a month after playing San Diego, the Experience played its last concert at the Denver Pop Festival.
7-11-70 – Janis Joplin made her final San Diego appearance at the Sports Arena on this night, backed by her new group the Full Tilt Boogie Band. Ticket prices were $3.75 to $5.50.
Also on the bill were her old band, Big Brother and the Holding Company, whose guitarist Sam Andrew, had quit Big Brother for awhile to join Janis’s shortlived Kozmic Blues Band
“Sam said the drinking was beginning to show in Janis’s body and she was gaining weight again,” according to Joplin’s sister Laura, in her book Love, Janis. “Sam also recalled the puffy red skin that she had, a clear sign of excessive alcohol consumption. The emotional roller coaster was still going fast for Janis. High and then low, she struggled to maintain an equilibrium.”
Joining Joplin at the Sports Arena was longtime Doors producer Paul Rothchild, who was being considered to work on her next album. “In San Diego,” says Laura, “Janis gave him a stopwatch, saying ‘Look, I’ve got thirty-five good minutes in me. You stand behind the amps and I’ll look you over, you flash me how much time I have left.’ Paul thought it was a good sign that she was pacing herself like a runner.”
Rothchild later said of watching Joplin in San Diego, “She was singing and I was enraptured, because I was listening to one of the most brilliant vocalists I ever heard, in classical, pop, or jazz music. What a voice…all of the woman was revealed. The vessel of Janis vanished. For somebody like me, who was always talking about the inner beauty and all that stuff, it got me big. So I was totally hooked from that moment on, on every single possible level.” Rothchild would work on Joplin’s final album Pearl, including her only number one single, “Me and Bobby McGee.”
“The presence of old friends in San Diego had energized her for the airplane journey back to San Francisco,” according to Laura Joplin. “She bought drinks for everyone. [Big Brother guitarist] James Gurley found her too exuberant, as though desperately trying to be the life of the party.”
One month later, on August 12, the Full Tilt Boogie Band’s equipment was stolen in Boston, and the group performed at Harvard Stadium with borrowed gear. It was Joplin’s last public appearance with the group; she died of a drug overdose in Los Angeles October 4.
10-18-70: Pink Floyd performed in San Diego for the first time at the Intercollegiate Baseball Facility (a.k.a. the Polo Field) at UCSD. Touring behind their Atom Heart Mother album, they had played the previous month for their largest audience ever -- over 500,000 people -- in Paris. Despite their popularity in Europe, Floyd was third on the San Diego bill, behind Hot Tuna and Leon Russell.
Tickets cost $3.50 for the general-admission show, which started at noon. "There was a big marijuana protest on the grounds at the same time," recalls one-time concert promoter Dan Tee, a member of UCSD's Student Body Council at the time and one of the people behind the show. "About a hundred people were carrying signs and chanting 'legalize it, legalize it,' and it seemed like there were at least that many cops around too. "[The protestors] weren't too organized, though. Before long, most of them were going into the concert instead of protesting.... We used a bunch of their [abandoned] sign poles to prop up a temporary fence that gate-crashers tore down to get into the concert."
The San Diego date was one of the few where the experimental song "Alan's Psychedelic Breakfast" was performed by the band. It lasted around 20 minutes. "They actually sat at a little folding table and ate for part of the song," says Tee, "with tapes of voices and sound effects playing in the background."
The band returned to San Diego one year later -- 10/17/71 -- to play a show at Golden Hall that became widely bootlegged.
10-17-71 – Pink Floyd at Golden Hall: One of the most widely bootlegged concerts of the vinyl era, collectors of ROIOs (recordings of illegitimate origin) at www.pf-roio say of this concert:
"This is post-Syd pre-Dark Side Floyd at the height of their jamming power...Each instrument is clear and, for a change, Rick [Wright]'s organ is played up in the mix."
"Possibly the best currently available show from the fall 1971 shows...'Fat Old Sun' is the extended version, with an extra verse sung before the jam." "PF shows off their quad sound effects. The music fades out and somebody enters through a door, walks around in the room opening doors with different sounds behind them. After a while, 'Cymbaline' fades in again." Among the many bootlegs available of this performance, From Oblivion appears to have the closest to a complete setlist, now available on CD and frequently auctioned through eBay.
6-13-72 - Rolling Stones: Only recently have viewing-copies of Robert Frank's long-suppressed documentary "[Expletive]sucker Blues" surfaced. The movie famously chronicles the Stones' infamous 1972 tour, timed to promote "Exile On Main Street" [released April 12] and the group's first time playing North America since the deadly 1969 Altamont concert. In the film, one scene takes place at the San Diego International Sports Arena date
Backstage, Mick Jagger can be seen deciding what to wear over his purple jumpsuit - a silver lame' jacket, black leather coat or raspberry polka dot shirt, his three main sartorial accessories for the tour. He ends up shrugging his shoulders to don a plain denim jacket that looks small even on his thin frame, muttering "I don't care, it's only San Diego ." The set was reportedly fair - it's one of the few occasions they've performed "Honky Tonk Woman" live. The real show was happening outside, in the Arena parking lot.
The Bill Graham-produced event had, like the Stones themselves, sold out. Unreserved seating cost $6.50, among the year's highest ticket prices (even aside from the free parking) in an era when Pink Floyd, Traffic and Chicago tickets cost local patrons $4 - $5.
Around three hundred apparently ticketless youths milled around the Arena parking lot as someone, perhaps several someones, worked their way through the crowd, selling dozens of counterfeit tickets for anywhere from $10 to $20 each. The actual tickets had been imprinted on a beige fiber cardstock with slightly raised ink - the counterfeits were offset printed with thick raised ink, fairly convincing except printed on a yellow-orange cardstock. Had the color been closer to the genuine tickets, most of the counterfeits might have gone unnoticed.
Hapless scam victims were refused admission and soon the crowd of angry, ripped off Stones fans and rowdy ticketless bystanders were moving threateningly en masse for the row of entrances. Guards (one of whom later characterized the scene as "a riot") were overwhelmed, dozens of people stormed the gates and ran into the hall and police were helpless do anything other than summon medical aid for a handful of mildly injured gatekeepers.
When it was reported that most rioters appeared underage, a Juvenile Delinquency and Crime Commission was set up to investigate whether local rock concerts in general and Stones concerts in particular should be restricted to only adult patrons (no city measure ever materialized). The scene was eerily repeated in July at a Montreal Stones show, where 3,000 victims of ticket forgers rioted in the streets. At the same concert, one of the band's equipment trucks was dynamited by French separatists, making the San Diego date seem more rowdy than riotous by comparison.
Surviving counterfeit tickets from the Sports Arena show are highly prized collector's items, sold and traded with certificates of authenticity signed by purported experts in rock and roll memorabilia. One eBay auction in late 2003 for an untorn San Diego 6-13-72 bootleg ticket, "certified authentic" (an authentic counterfeit?), attracted over 3,800 hits, drawing 65 bids and closing at $251.00, plus $7.50 insured shipping.
9-7-72 – Jefferson Airplane at the San Diego Sports Arena: This was one of the Airplane's final concerts with their "classic" lineup, which split up two weeks later following a San Francisco date. Onstage at the Sports Arena were Paul Kantner, Jack Casady, Jorma Kaukonen, and Grace Slick. Singer Marty Balin had left the band, and drummer Joey Covington had quit in April, to be replaced by John Barbata from the Turtles. Future Jefferson Starship members David Freiberg and Papa John Creach were also on board for this show, recorded for the original Airplane's final album, Long John Silver. Poco opened, playing a short set that included "Consequently So Long," with Jorma Kaukonen guesting on the latter.
Just two weeks earlier, the band had threatened to cancel the remainder of the tour, after Slick was maced by police and Kantner slightly injured in a fight during an Akron, Ohio, concert. Someone in the band's crew allegedly called the police "pigs" from the stage, sparking the melee: the crewmember -- Jack Casady's brother Chick -- was dragged off the stage and arrested.
10-27-72 – Elton John at San Diego Sports Arena: there was some doubt whether Elton John would make his scheduled appearance at the Sports Arena. His new single “Crocodile Rock” b/w “Elderberry Wine” was due to hit stores that very day, but the future Sir Elton had been summoned by the Queen of England for a royal command performance at London’s Palladium, alongside Liberace, and was thinking of canceling. With the San Diego show sold out, while an October 30 concert in Phoenix still showed empty seats, John decided to blow off Phoenix for his date with the Queen.
His Sports Arena set featured nineteen songs, including “Tiny Dancer,” “Levon,” and “Honky Cat,” with guest Larry “Legs” Smith tap dancing during “I Think I'm Gonna Kill Myself.”
After the concert, Elton was spotted at a local bar known as Jerry’s Hole, on San Diego Avenue and California, where Paul Lynde would also show up from time to time. Jerry's Hole was then already known around town as an early so-called “gay bar,” located in the center of a V–shaped intersection.
Dan Whitehead, who spent two decades as a local theater projectionist, recalls “There was an outdoor section where there was a fire ring. When my friends and I came in that night there was a guy setting at the fire and I told Trish and Duffy ‘I think that's Elton John.’ They mocked me at first until it was discovered that it was indeed him. It was during a time when he was thinking of buying a home in San Diego. I never spoke with him and I don't know why he didn't buy a place in San Diego. I wish I'd gone over to talk to him. I felt intimidated and just didn't do it. For that matter, I don't think any of my friends went over and spoke to him either. I wonder if he thought we were all cold fish?”
While in the U.K. to perform for the Queen (not Bernie Taupin, but the Queen of England), John duped new keyboard tracks over a filmed promo for T Rex’s “Bang A Gong (Get It On),” directed by pal Ringo Starr. 
4-26-73: Elvis Presley appeared at the San Diego Sports Arena. He came to perform in San Diego five times (six, if you count his 4/3/56 set on the aircraft carrier USS Hancock, docked at the 28th street Naval Station). After the Navy show, he appeared for two consecutive nights at the San Diego Arena on Eighth and Harbor Drive (a.k.a. Glacier Garden). He returned to the Arena for a sold-out show in June 1956 but didn't perform again in San Diego until November 15, 1970.
It was at the 1970 show where, according to ipayonecenter.com, "[Elvis] met a security guard working backstage who, as it turns out, hailed from Elvis's hometown. They shared a few laughs and Elvis went to perform to a full house and leave town. The next day, much to the amazement of the security guard and the entire Arena staff, a brand-new Cadillac was delivered to the security guard."
Elvis's final local appearance was at the Sports Arena on April 24, 1976.
(Tom Waits high school yearbook photo)
11-17-73: Tom Waits played at Folk Arts Rare Records, then located in Hillcrest at 3743 Fifth Avenue. "He did our open-mike nights back when he was still at Hilltop High," says Folk Arts owner Lou Curtiss. "In '73, he was a doorman at the Heritage but, when they closed, I started doing concerts at the store, and I asked him to do one of the first ones. We didn't have much space, so we were crammed to the rooftops; he was just starting to get real well known.... Bob Webb, who owned the Heritage, played guitar, and Tom played guitar and piano."
Waits, who had one album under his belt, performed songs from his upcoming LP The Heart of Saturday Night, including "Shiver Me Timbers" and "San Diego Serenade."
"I still have a tape of the show," says Curtiss. Admission was "no more than $4" and Waits was paid from proceeds of around 150 ticket sales. "He got most of the money," says Curtiss, "we weren't getting rich off these things."
Curtiss owns over 4000 reels of concert tapes, the majority recorded by himself. Having recently received $35,000 from the Grammy Foundation Grant Program to preserve some of his collection, this concert is in consideration for the planned digital archive, which will be available to researchers and interested public.
8-11-74: Frank Zappa brought his Mothers of Invention to Golden Hall for a show immortalized on the bootleg LP Golden Debris. The audience was admitted while the band performed a sound check, apparently with faulty equipment. Zappa apologized for the poor sound during "Uncle Meat," "Pygmy Twylyte," "Cosmik Debris," and "Help, I'm a Rock" before concluding, "That seems to be as good as it gets."
Opening act Tom Waits then took the stage with his piano. Waits performed "San Diego Serenade," along with a few other songs and an extended monologue -- boos were heard, and one audience member yelled, "Somebody shoot that [expletive]." Waits showed up onstage again during Zappa's set, telling his "12-inch man" joke while the Mothers played "Ol' 55."
The Mothers that night included drummer Chester Thompson, who'd later play with Genesis. Three of the songs performed were unreleased at the time: "Inca Roads," "T'Mershi Duween," and "Dupree's Paradise." After the show -- captured on the bootleg LP Golden Debris -- the duo visited Waits's old job site, Napoleone's Pizza in National City, where Zappa was so impressed by the jukebox selection that he mentioned it glowingly in a subsequent interview. He told Zappa fanzine City of Tiny Lights (published out of North County), "It's a good thing I didn't know about that pizza, or that jukebox, or I might have never left San Diego."
10-13-74: T Rex and Blue Oyster Cult were scheduled to play Golden Hall. T Rex had just undergone personnel changes and singer Marc Bolan was in the midst of splitting with his wife and living in L.A. to avoid British taxes. T Rex's new album, Teenage Dream, hadn't done well in the U.S., and Bolan was struggling with health problems. (His weight gain caused tabloids to dub him England's Porky Pixie.)
After an October 2 show in New Jersey, Bolan (reportedly drinking heavily and using cocaine) became ill and the next few tour dates were cancelled, including San Diego. With Blue Oyster Cult still willing to play, Little Feat were added to the bill and the concert went on.
(Led Zep's San Diego bootleg)