Do you remember your first rock concert? I went to mine when I was 14, by myself, and it’s hard for me to believe it was 45 years ago!
On the night before Halloween in 1971, I was dropped off in front of the Anaheim Convention Center with a ticket in my hand to see Traffic. I knew about the band because my oldest sister had bought the “John Barleycorn Must Die” album in 1970 and it knocked me out.
Steve Winwood was their leader and he’d just finished a tour with the super group Blind Faith. Now he was back with Traffic and a new album that had yet to be released. I had no idea what to expect when I entered the arena.
Frisbees were flying in the air amid various colored balloons floating above the arena floor. I felt like I was a million miles away from home. This was what college kids did, the same ones who protested against the Vietnam War, and I was one of them. At least for the night.
I dutifully jotted down notes in a tiny notebook I’d brought with me and typed them up when I got home. My first concert review. Later on I’d get paid for doing the same thing.
Traffic opened with “Medicated Goo,” with Winwood on guitar and vocals. Then they moved to the new songs no one had heard yet like “Rainmaker.” I knew right then the album was going to be a killer and I hadn’t heard the title track yet. Jim Capaldi gave it this introduction: “It’s about anyone who ever got knocked for doing something right.”
The 20-minute extravaganza that followed was “The Low Spark of High Heeled Boys.” When it was over, the crowd applauded for five minutes straight, the first standing ovation I ever witnessed. The band had added musicians but it was the core of Winwood, Capaldi and saxophonist Chris Wood that kept my attention — until the fourth original member of Traffic showed up for the encore of “Dear Mr. Fantasy” and “Gimme Some Lovin.” That would be Dave Mason, who left the band in 1969 but had returned to jam one last time with his old buddies.
Live performance special
I realized right then that rock ‘n’ roll was all about the performance. Records were wonderful because you could play them over and over, but a concert was magic because it only happened once. If you weren’t there, you were going to miss out on something special that happens when thousands of people gather to hear the music they love.
Hard to believe my second concert was even better! One day in 1970 I was hanging around the house when my sister, Marti, showed me a new album she’d just bought by a group called The Who. But it wasn’t an album; it was a cassette tape, the first one I’d ever seen. I took the small plastic box into her bedroom where she kept her tape player. Ninety minutes later my world had changed forever. The album was “Tommy,” and it sounded like music from the future.
A year later I heard The Who were coming to the Long Beach Arena on Dec. 10, 1971. I’d just bought “Who’s Next” and I had to go. The day before tickets went on sale I talked my mother into letting me spend the night camped out in front of the box office. I rounded up some fellow Who fans and off we went with a couple of sleeping bags to Long Beach. It was bitterly cold but we made it through the night sharing stories with a few hundred other fans spread out on the concrete.
Quite a show to remember
What a show it was! Pete Townshend did the windmill and jumped around the stage like a man possessed. He put on a jeweled crown and declared himself the true “King of Rock ‘n’ Roll.” Roger Daltrey twirled his microphone while strutting back and forth, just like he did in the Woodstock movie. Keith Moon was a blur of motion behind the drums, and John Entwistle stood like a statue while playing killer bass riffs.
“Who’s Next” had just been released, so I was one of the first fans to hear the classics “Baba O’ Riley” and “Won’t Get Fooled Again” live in concert. They also played bits of “Tommy” and their older tunes, but I’ll never forget Townshend’s outburst after Daltrey pleaded with the crowd to back down from the stage:
“I’ll tell ya (expletive) something, all right? Either lay down or stand up or sit down or do something … but shut up, all right? This is a rock ‘n’ roll concert, not a (expletive) tea party!”
No truer words were ever spoken. In their heyday, The Who were the epitome of rock. Great showmen, great musicians and Pete Townshend wrote great songs about teenage angst. On stage, “Behind Blue Eyes” went from a contemplative ballad to an angry burst of frustration. Even the songs they didn’t write, such as “Young Man’s Blues” or “Summertime Blues,” captured my feelings better than anyone else. When they ended the show with the epic “My Generation,” I was in total agreement with the signature phrase:
“I hope I die before I get old.”
Because The Who understood what it was like to be young. In the fall of 1971, I was young and had already seen two of the greatest rock bands to ever hit the stage and it changed my life forever!
J.A. Mock is a writer and longtime Playa del Rey resident.
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