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| An ad for two promotional concerts booked at the Oakland Coliseum Arena for July 12 and 13, 1967, featuring the Grass Roots and The Doors. Both shows were moved to the smaller Oakland Auditorium. |
1967 was the Summer Of Love in San Francisco. Whether you approved or disapproved, then or now, it was a central event in the ontogeny of rock music. The Fillmore and The Avalon stamped out the blueprint for live rock concerts in 1966, and it went worldwide in '67. Bands played for free in the park, bands proposed revolution and advocated mind expansion. And it wasn't just Jefferson Airplane, the Grateful Dead or Country Joe & The Fish--Paul McCartney and George Harrison both visited San Francisco, the Beatles released Sgt. Pepper's, the Stones released Their Satanic Majesties Request and Eric Burdon even recalled a warm San Francisco night. The Summer of '67 in San Francisco can rightly be called a golden time.
Yet the world did not change overnight in 1967. There were still teenagers in the suburbs, even in the Bay Area, and the powerful forces of commerce and entertainment that had been ascendant in popular music for at least a decade remained dominant. The Fillmore and the Avalon were still just an underground scene, even if one that was expanding. Meanwhile, above ground, the powers-that-be thought everything was business as usual.
Two rock concerts were booked for the new Oakland Coliseum Arena on July 12 and 13, 1967 at the height of the Summer Of Love. The first night featured the Grassroots, initially supported by super-cool Moby Grape. The second night was headlined by The Doors, riding high on their debut album and their epic #1 single "Light My Fire." These concerts were big deals, the kind of shows that should have been fondly recalled by everyone who attended as the coming of age of hot rock bands in their prime, at a time when legends walked among us all.
The concerts seemed to have bombed. There is almost no trace of the event, save some notices that the concerts were moved at the last minute to the much smaller Oakland Auditorium. This post will look at these two concerts, and determine why two shows that would have killed it at the Fillmore were still such massive stiffs.
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| RCA Records released Surrealistic Pillow by Jefferson Airplane in February 1967 |
State Of Play, Summer of '67
According to everyone who was there, 1966 was the real Summer Of Love. Cool bands playing at the Fillmore or Avalon, or free in the park, people hanging out, all while straight people didn't even know what LSD was. The Haight-Ashbury was the most famous, but there were cool underground scenes on the Sunset Strip in West Hollywood, in Greenwich Village, in Cambridge, MA, in Vancouver and some other places. The record companies caught on, and the scenes started to merge in 1967. Sunset Strip and Greenwich Village bands played San Francisco, and vice versa. Record companies were everywhere, signing up every handsome hippie with a guitar and a band. Some good records were made, too, in between some forgettable ones.
High school kids out in the suburbs were catching on to the fact that something was happening out there. In the Bay Area, a lot of parents who would let their teenagers borrow the family station wagon still didn't want them to go to big, bad San Francisco at night. But kids were starting to hear some stuff, even on Top 40 radio; what pill was the one that makes you larger, and what was the one that makes you small? When you looked at albums, even in the Rexall Drug Store, some of those covers had bands that didn't at all look like "entertainers," but like colorful free spirits, or maybe just weirdos.
The Doors had hit it big with "Break On Through" and then "Light My Fire." Jefferson Airplane, with their mysteriously titled album, had scored with "Somebody To Love" and "White Rabbit." Something was happening, even if they didn't know what it was. Madison Avenue smelled it, too, and figured out that whatever the hippies were up to, maybe it was a good way to sell stuff to teenagers and young adults. Rock concerts were popular, so why not use popular rock bands to sell stuff to teenagers? Makes sense. Sure. Let's do it.
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| Berkeley Gazette Article, July 7 '67, clearly sourced from a press release |
Tuna Canner Promotes Program (Berkeley Gazette July 7 '67)
A "Crepuscular Happening" is scheduled July 12 and 13 at the Oakland Coliseum headlining "The doors" and "The Grass Roots" in a promotion that is unique in two respects: price and sponsor.
White Star Tuna is behind the promotion in an attempt to acquaint the teen-age set with their label and house, the price, $1.50 and three White Star Tuna labels.
A spokesman for the Van Camp Sea Food company pointed that the only thing they were really interested in was giving the teen-agers an exciting evening--one that would be remembered later when , as young marrieds, they'd buy tuna at the grocers.
Other groups joining the "Crepuscular Happening" include "E Types" "Harbinger Complex" and "Strawberry Window" on the July 12 program and "Chocolate Watchband," "Peter Wheat" and "Mark and Stanley and The Fendermen" on July 13.
Tickets for the top entertainment bargain of the summer on sale at Bay Tickets, Kaiser Center Mall; Downtown Center Boxoffice, San Francisco.The Oakland Coliseum Complex had been completed in 1966. The stadium had been planned as the home for the AFL Oakland Raiders, who had debuted there in September 1966. The Oakland Athletics, relocated from Kansas City, would debut on April 17, 1968. Across the parking lot, the glassy cage of the Oakland Coliseum Arena, seating 15,000 or more, had opened in December 1966 with the traveling Ice Follies show. Initially it had mostly featured sporting events--ice hockey (the Oakland Seals), boxing, track and so on--and a few musical events. Henry Mancini had conducted the Oakland Symphony (January 4, 1967), then trumpeter Al Hirt played (February 11), and then the first rock concert with Paul Revere and The Raiders (February 18, 1967). East Bay promoter Bill Quarry had produced a multi-act show headlined by Eric Burdon And The Animals on March 25, but it had been a complete debacle. Per the Examiner review, only 4000 had showed up. The sound was terrible and the crowd was bored.
By 1967, Madison Avenue had caught on to the fact that teenagers liked the hip new rock groups. The Doors had migrated from being an underground Sunset Strip band to popular teen idols, with Jim Morrison's photo prominent in 16 Magazine. From an advertising point of view, it made sense to try and link popular rock groups with products for sale. What today we would call "Performance Art" was then called "A Happening." A "Crepuscalar" creature is one that prefers twilight to the night (Nocturnal) or day (Diurnal). A Crepuscular Happening sounds cool, if you're a middle-aged ad man who doesn't understand his own kids.
I don't think that many teenagers read the Berkeley Gazette, so it wasn't that they would have been directly affected by the language of the sponsors. Nonetheless it is still surprising to read out loud. They want teenagers to have to get White Star Tuna labels so that they will remember the brand when they are young and married. Now, sure, maybe some young Doors fan was hoping to get lucky after the show, and would impregnate his girlfriend, get married, get a job at the Ford plant and then--after baby made three--recall White Star Tuna when they went to Safeway. But that's not what either boys or girls were dreaming of when they thought about rock and roll.
Sixties rock music was the beginning of popular music as a form of identity and self-expression. Prior to Bob Dylan and the Beatles, rock music was for dancing and driving. By 1967, it was about who you were and how you felt. Even if you thought, or think, that the self-expression was just another Madison Avenue illusion, having your identity as a marker for Tuna brands at the grocery store doesn't have that rock and roll feel to it. No one puts a White Star Tuna sticker on their bedroom wall. When you promoted underground rock and roll bands, even "underground" ones on huge corporate labels with massive national distribution, the link to the marketplace had to be offstage. Oakland wasn't San Francisco, but it wasn't that far off.
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| Let's Live For Today by The Grassroots. The album was released in 1967 on Dunhill Records. |
July 12, 1967 Oakland Coliseum Arena, Oakland, CA: Grass Roots/Moby Grape/E-Types/Harbinger Complex/Strawberry Window (Wednesday)
July 13, 1967 Oakland Coliseum Arena, Oakland, CA: The Doors/Chocolate Watch Band/Peter Wheat & The Breadmen/Mark and Stanley and The Fendermen (Thursday)
While the headline acts at the two "White Star" concerts had some Fillmore credibility, the supporting acts were all part of the East Bay teen circuit. The fact that there were four or more acts for each show was a mark of a teenage show, rather than a Fillmore one. At the Fillmore or Avalon, there were typically three bands, each playing two sets. The headliner would play the third and sixth (final) set of the night. The entire show ran for several hours, with suburban teenagers often arriving and leaving early, and late night trippers arriving late and staying late. Teen shows were more like High School dances, with shorter sets.
The structure of the White Star shows mimics shows produced by Bill Quarry's TNT Productions. He had regularly produced shows on Friday nights at the 2000-capacity Rollarena in San Leandro, a roller skating rink. By mid-67, the Rollarena had been shoved aside as suburban teenagers preferred to see the cool bands at the Fillmore. The supporting acts at these two concerts regularly played TNT events, and often played a lot of covers of Rolling Stones' songs and the likes, popular tunes that were easy to dance to.
The Grassroots had an only-in-the-60s saga. Two LA producers, PF Sloan and Steve Barri ("Eve Of Destruction," "Secret Agent Man"), had recorded a single with some promise. "Where Were You When I Needed You" had been credited to the Grass Roots, but no such band existed. When the single hit in late 1965, Sloan and Barri recruited a San Mateo band called The Bedouins, winners of the 1965 San Mateo County Teenage Fair Battle Of The Bands, to become The Grass Roots. The Bedouins then toured around as The Grass Roots. They split with Sloan & Barri, however, when the producers refused to let the band record any new tracks for their first album on Dunhill Records, preferring to record them in LA without them. The band members had quit by Fall '66.
Sloan & Barri recruited a new band from Los Angeles, called the 13th Floor (not the Texan 13th Floor Elevators, to be clear), and made them the "new" Grass Roots. Guitarist Creed Bratton (later well-known as an actor) and bassist Rob Grill fronted the new lineup. By Summer 1967, their hit "Let's Live For Today" was climbing the charts. The Grass Roots weren't at all underground, but they had a slim patina of Fillmore cred associated with them, since they had played there various times.
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| Moby Grape's debut album on Columbia was released in May 1967 |
Moby Grape had been formed more or less out of thin air by ex-Jefferson Airplane manager Matthew Katz. They were five experienced rock and rollers who could all sing, play and write songs, and were good looking to boot. They had debuted at the Fillmore and Avalon in early '67, and they were the hot band in town. Columbia snapped them up, and staff producer David Rubinson recorded a killer debut album. Moby Grape seemed to be on the heels of Jefferson Airplane and others, a great, hip happening band coming out of San Francisco.
Moby Grape could have been special, but Columbia got everything wrong. They released every track on the album on five simultaneous singles, and had huge, cheesy promotions. Columbia rented out the Avalon for a promotional party, with several hundred bottles of specially labeled "Moby Grape Wine." No one remembered to bring any corkscrews, however, which pretty much sums up the Moby Grape story. The next morning, three members of Moby Grape were arrested in the Marin headlands, accused of contributing to the delinquency of a 17-year old girl (to be fair, the members have never denied attempting to contribute to her delinquency).
Hip San Francisco didn't trust Columbia's hype. Moby Grape was great, actually, but fans were suspicious. In an underground scene, credibility comes from authenticity. Appearing at a concert sponsored by White Star Tuna was the kind of underground thing that the Grateful Dead or Quicksilver wouldn't have done. Country Joe & The Fish would have protested White Star Tuna. Moby Grape couldn't get anything right, for all their fine music and good intentions.
The E-Types were from Salinas, and sounded like the Beatles. They were popular in San Jose and the South Bay. Harbinger Complex were from Fremont, and sounded like the Rolling Stones. They were managed by Bill Quarry, one of the markers of his handprints on the bill. Strawberry Window were from Oakland. They would change their name to Dandelion Wine in 1968, because it sounded more psychedelic.
The Doors headlined Thursday night. They had been the coolest band on West Hollywood's Sunset Strip in Summer '66, and had recorded their debut for Elektra in the Fall. When the album was released in January 1967, the Doors were already an established underground live attraction in Southern and Northern California. "Break On Through" was an AM hit, and in June "Light My Fire" was an even bigger hit. The Doors came to the attention of 16 Magazine, one of the few ways to expand beyond the West Coast underground. The Doors grappled with whether they were going to be cool or just popular, but at least they had been cool to start with.
San Jose was full of teenagers, and had a thriving rock scene of its own. Chocolate Watch Band were one of the anchors of that scene, with some local hits and albums on the Tower label. They were a great live band, too. Due to some rivalries between the Watch Band's manager (Ron Roupe) and Bill Graham, they never got the opportunities they deserved at the Fillmore. Appearing at a White Star concert didn't actually help them on this front, although they were reputedly great live.
Peter Wheat and The Breadmen were another popular teen band, performing Stones-style music dressed as bread delivery men. Mark and Stanley and The Fendermen were another East Bay cover band, popular in the Alameda County suburbs.
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| A poster for a James Brown concert at the "New Oakland Coliseum" on July 9, 1967. Due to falling ceiling tiles, the concert was moved outdoors to the ballpark. |
Over the weekend of July 8-9, some notes appeared in the Chronicle and Tribune about how ceiling tiles had fallen into the Coliseum Arena. A weekend James Brown show booked for the indoor Coliseum (on Sunday July 9) was moved next door to the stadium. For the record, that means James Brown played the first Oakland Coliseum "Day On The Green."
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| Oakland Tribune July 12 '67 |
The papers also said that the "Band Battles" for Wednesday and Thursday were canceled. It turned out, however, that they were moved to the Oakland Auditorium Arena, about six miles Northwest, fairly near downtown Oakland. There was a cursory note in the Oakland Tribune on the day of the first concert. It said
The location for the "Crepuscular Happening" concerts tonight and tomorrow night has been changed from the Oakland Coliseum to the Oakland Auditorium.
The "Grass Roots and "Moby Grape" headline tonight's show. "The Doors" and "Mark and Stanley and The Fendermen" will be featured tomorrow night.
Oakland Coliseum Arena had between 15,000-18,000 seats, depending on configuration. Oakland Auditorium Arena had only 5,400. The Oakland Auditorium Arena had been built in 1913, and was hardly the gleaming new attraction that was the Coliseum. True, Buffalo Bill's Wild West show had played there (in 1915), and Elvis Presley twice (in '56 and '57), but that just made it seem old. Also, the Auditorium (at 10 10th Street, near Lake Merritt) wasn't nearly as centrally located as the Coliseum. While the problem with the ceiling tiles would have required a move, the shows would only have been moved if ticket sales were small enough to fit in the Auditorium. It would have been embarrassing to have a tiny crowd in the cavernous Coliseum, but of course the events passed without notice in the newspapers.
We are accustomed today to consider rock concerts, even bad or unprofitable ones, as cultural artifacts worthy of review and comment. But that really only started at the Fillmore, elevating the rock shows to the status of jazz or symphony concerts, worthy of consideration on their own terms. Out in the 1967 suburbs, rock concerts were still just public appearances by performers popular with teenagers, no different than the host of a game show appearing at a shopping mall.
We have no eyewitnesses for either show, no recollections from any band member, no clue of how few people were really there. The crowd was probably slim and bored, the sound was probably sub-par, and such organization as there might have been probably wasn't that good, given the sudden venue change. White Star Tuna didn't promote another rock show in the Bay Area, to my knowledge. We have no idea how many high school sweethearts got married after seeing The Doors, so we can't judge the market effectiveness of the event. So it goes.
July 14, 1967 State Fair Grandstand, California State Fairgrounds, Sacramento, CA: The Doors/Parrish Hall Blues Band/Working Class/Public Nuisance (Friday) Crepuscular Happening
White Star Tuna did present another show headlined by The Doors, outdoors at the California State Fair in Sacramento. Some local Sacramento bands opened the show. The Working Class would evolve into the band Sanpaku, but not until 1968. Apparently it was a swelteringly hot day.
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| Oakland Tribune "Teen Age" section, November 8, 1967 |
Much as you might think that bands and corporations would have learned to keep to their separate corners, there seems to have been one more major effort to have a free concert sponsored by a big company. White Front department stores, a major chain, promoted huge shows at the 17,000 seat Hollywood Bowl and the 11,000+ seat Cow Palace in Daly City, with stellar lineups. It was pitched as a "Festival Of Music."
November 18, 1967 Cow Palace, Daly City, CA (Saturday)
November 19, 1967 Hollywood Bowl, Los Angeles, CA (Sunday)
The Association/The Animals/Everly Brothers/Sopwith Camel/The Who/Sunshine Company
I wrote about what I could uncover about these concerts in a blog post some time ago. An article in the November 8, 1967 Oakland "Teen Age" section explained:
Tickets to the musical extravaganza are free with the purchase of any one M-G-M or Warner Brothers stereo album at any Bay Area White Front store, sponsor of the event.White Front was a large department store, like Sears or Macy's, and there were quite a few around the Bay Area. Thus you could have gone into the store and purchased, say, Freak Out by The Mothers of Invention (on MGM), or the first Grateful Dead album (on Warners), and gotten a free ticket. Of course, in those days, the record sections of stores had considerably fewer albums, and you might find yourself having to buy a considerably less attractive album.
The shows were produced by Sam Riddle, a dj on the LA Top 40 station KHJ (Boss Radio 930). Riddle also produced numerous teenage-oriented TV shows in Southern California, such as Hollywood A Go Go on Channel 9 (KHJ-tv)in 1965.
The internet being what is, the Comment Thread over the years, spread out over a decade, includes detailed memory from both the Hollywood Bowl and Cow Palace shows. Bands played short sets, the Who and The Animals were cool, and groups like The Association already hardly counted as rock music. The descriptions are probably as close as we will get to finding out what the White Star concerts in Oakland might have been like--pleasant, mechanical and antiseptic, in opposition to what all the young people liked about rock and roll when it was just getting started.
For the next post in the '67 Berkeley series (Berkeley and East Bay Concerts, July-September 1967), see here [forthcoming]
For the Berkeley, Oakland and East Bay Rock History Navigation Tracker, see here
Chicken On A Unicycle
