Some people, maybe once or twice in their life, are lucky enough, or just as likely, unlucky enough, to witness a genuinely important historic moment. My father was, as he liked to describe himself, a desk jockey/staff sergeant in the US Army Air Corps stationed at Wheeler Field, Honolulu Hawaii, in 1941. He witnessed the Japanese Air Force decimate Wheeler Field and destroy most of the aircraft there before heading over the hill and bombing the Pacific Fleet in Pearl Harbor. He always described that event as a mixed blessing – a terrifying near death experience, and the revelation of the most powerful of historical moments. Not to mention one hell of a light show. It changed his life forever. It changed the world forever. Shortly thereafter, he applied for flight school to help fight the new war, was rejected for pilot because of an inner ear issue, but was accepted as navigator/bombardier on B-29 Superfortresses and spent much of the rest of the war participating in bombing raids over Japanese positions in the Pacific Ocean culminating in the bombings of mainland Japan at the end of the war. Some real history there. Well, Pop was from the “greatest generation”.
I was from the pampered and spoiled rock ‘n’ roll generation.
But I did witness one genuinely influential, and now with the perpective of 50 years of pondering, obviously important moment in American pop-culture history. And it was entirely by chance and luck. At the time I didn’t really understand that it was all that important.
In November 1976 I was working for a company called Time Services Inc. that ran vendor concession retail counters in major department stores. My station was on the ground floor of the main Macy’s department store in Union Square. We sold watch and jewelry accessories and repaired jewelry, soldered charm bracelets and replaced watch stems, hands and lenses. My coworker, Terry Bacon, was an old-school San Francisco native, who knew a lot of people. His friend or cousin, I can’t remember, worked for the TicketTron outlet. Terry, who was a big music aficionado had bought two tickets to The Last Waltz concert that was going to take place on Thanksgiving Day at the Winterland Auditorium.
His friend, brother or whoever was going with him got sick and couldn’t go for that or maybe some other reason, memory escapes, and so Terry asked me, out of the blue, if I wanted the extra ticket. He would give it to me for $25 which was the face value. $25 in 1976 was a f*** ton of money. It would be like 300 bucks now. I thought about it and thought about it. We had just been paid I think that day or maybe the day before so I had money. I said yes.
This concert was, very fortuitously, professionally filmed with multiple cameras by Martin Scorsese, who at the time was a 35 year old, up-and-coming film director.
I found out decades later through my readings about countercultural figures that one of my heroes, Emmett Grogan was in the room at the time as well. I did not know who he was in 1976. I knew almost nothing really. But I found it significant for my personal history, that I shared a physical space with this fellow who later provided much influence for the activities I was involved in and some of the people that I ran with. Grogan would be dead six months or so later, OD-ing on a subway train in New York City.
A dozen or more of the biggest names and rock ‘n’ roll and blues music were going to accompany The Band in what was billed as their final live performance. I didn’t know much about any of that. I’d heard of Bob Dylan of course and was vaguely aware of his “support band”. I heard from Terry that many other heavy hitters would be there. I was aware of Neil Young, Ringo Starr, and some of the others that would be players onstage there. I don’t recall if they were billed beforehand or not – probably were.
I had been in town at that point in time for six months. A hell of a lot had happened to me in those six months. Good and bad. Really wild times in San Francisco. I had a little money, and I was ready to do something fun.
I showed up at Winterland, got in line, finally got into the venue. Most of the main floor was cordoned off for a big Thanksgiving dinner. I don’t remember exactly if there was an extra charge for the dinner or not. It seems like there probably was because I do not remember sitting or eating – I recall hanging out outside of the perimeter where that was taking place, and have a vague memory of being hungry, and not having paid the extra for the dinner. After people were through eating, they cleared the tables and a bunch of ballroom dancers pranced out into the still cordoned off (with velvet ropes, as I recall) main floor.
I’d never seen anything like that at rock ‘n’ roll shows at Freedom Hall in Johnson City, Tennessee!
When they were finished attendants/roadies quickly pulled up the velvet ropes and stands, and I along with hundreds of other people ran as quickly as possible towards the stage. I ended up around stage center, one or two people back from the actual stage itself.
Maybe 10 years ago I rented a DVD of the Scorsese film and watched it several times. I went back over it and went through it frame by frame, looking for myself in the audience. It turns out there was very little audience footage. As I read just recently, Scorsese says he had chosen not to shoot much audience, because he wanted to concentrate entirely on the performers and allow people viewing to see the concert in that fashion. There was some footage, of the crowd, particularly the first few rows immediately up at the stage.
After spending some time at it, I focused in on an image of (I’m about 95% sure) an 18 year old me in the audience. You can see the pictures accompanying this write up.
Recounting this amazing experience and anecdote from my young life is not entirely an exercise in fluffing my ego or gloating about being at a cool thing. As I mentioned, it was entirely by chance, and no agency on my part brought me into this exceptional experience. Just dumb luck. with that said, because of my strategic viewing point for the show, I saw a whole bunch of fascinating things that I have not run across in any of the written or visual accounts of this now incredibly famous concert. I wanted to record them for posterity. I also put this out there as a invitation to anyone else. who was there or who has access to photos or film of the show to share that information with me and I guess with you all, and way of validating my memory, and also simply recording some really cool stories that I recall happening at this event.
I have included a bunch of articles and some film clips that I discovered while researching this online for the second time in depth. I dug out the video captures of what I believe to be my face in the audience from the first time I delved into the history of this event, some years ago. I stumbled onto these images in my file a few days ago and, my memory jog, and my interest in this long ago experience reignited, dug back in and spent the day looking at material from the show. Memory is a funny thing. Sometimes you tell yourself stories over and over again and certain details that maybe never happened become an integral part of the story. I am intimately aware of that phenomenon from editing the Cacophony book with Kevin Evans and Carrie Galbraith some years ago. People remember things differently, often with complete and guileless belief in their own memory. With that in mind, here are a couple of my personal remembrances of this event, some of which have been cross reference overtime by other peoples accounts, and by film evidence, others of which are just memories in my admittedly porous brain.
Neil, Young’s coke booger.
when Neil Young came out on stage, he was in a frumpy army jacket. He was maybe 30 feet away from me. I noticed there was something white in his nostril. I was pretty naïve at the time, and although I had used drugs, I had never snorted powder drugs. So I did not recognize what the white thing in Neil Young’s nostril was. For many many years, it was just a vague memory, but it was odd, and it stuck with me. On reviewing the events of the show decades later, it turns out that the coke booger in Neil Young’s nose was a very famous incident that actually occurred. I remember reading about Scorsese blocking out the coke booger frame by frame for the finished movie.
Neil Young’s wrong key harmonica
Another thing I remember but have not found any footage of was that I recall a roadie creeping out on stage staying very low and then coming up to Young’s right elbow, where he started tapping on the elbow with a harmonica. My assumption was that he was trying to give the harmonica to Neil Young. I remember Young a few bars into the song taking his harmonica out of the harmonica frame and although I don’t know what he said, it seems like it was something to the effect: “I have the wrong harmonica” and then the roadie handed him another harmonica.
I remember this quite vividly but I’ve not been able to find any film or photos of it. So anybody out there who remembers this or has a video I would be very interested in speaking with you.
Bob Dylan acting like a butt brain.
Dylan was the most famous player there although, in my mind surely not the most important. I don’t think you could tell him that though. His entire demeanor and body language and interactions with The Band, and other players seemed quite arrogant to my unsophisticated juvenile sensibilities. I found this annoying, because, so many of the other players, some of whom were nearly as famous, seemed to just be caught up in the joy of playing with these other amazing musicians. That goes for Ringo Starr, Eric Clapton, Joni, Mitchell, Neil Young, Stephen Stills, Muddy mother******* Waters speaking of really important artists, Paul Butterfield, even notorious egomaniac Neil Diamond.
The editing of the film, which of course was genius, doesn’t really reflect this as much as I recall it having taken place. Editing can show everything in its best light, which it surely does in this movie including prominently the final “jam” which I’ll get to later.
Van Morrison – plumber, or maybe roofer.
As I mentioned earlier, I was pretty naïve at the time, just young, and many of the players I hadn’t heard of. I’m not sure I would’ve known Joni Mitchell by name, I had certainly never heard of Ronnie Hawkins, and, although his set was one of my very favorite things about the show, I was unfamiliar with Paul Butterfield at the time.
So over halfway through the show, this little short, fat, dude, dressed and kind of looking like a plumber, or a roofer, strolled out on the stage or, rather strutted out onto stage. I thought who is this goober? and then he started performing and the difference of some of the other players and his awesome and professional and impassioned delivery really blew me away. That was my introduction to Van Morrison. To this day I am not a huge fan of his in general, but he is undeniably a powerful and important player and that night he was really kicking it. Literally kicking it if you watch the video! And he was kicking like a plumber! But man could he play and sing!
Bill Graham unctuous manipulator
I knew who Bill Graham was at the time. His reputation preceded him. Being so close to the stage and being able to peer into the wings on both stage left and stage right, I saw a lot of weird little encounters and strange body language communication. I was paying close attention, being fascinated by what was starting to reveal itself to me as a genuinely important experience. Bill Graham was a spinning top, he was like a crazy molecule bouncing all over the place backstage throughout the entire show. Running up to people patting them on the back, hugging some, picking some other people up, cowering in front of others. It was really one of the most fascinating things that I recall about the entire show and a real lesson in intense human interactions during an incredibly high profile scenario. You could almost feel the palpable sense of power and fortune emanating from Graham. It’s like I could read his mind. So allow me the indulgence of imagining: “My god, this is the biggest concert ever!!! every single one of these players is $1 million! I can’t believe I pulled it off! I’m going to make tons of money!” and towards the end of the show: “I’ve got to get everyone on stage! Everyone EVERYONE!!”
https://youtu.be/74BzSTQCl_c?feature=sharedI don’t recall seeing hardly any of this in the finished Scorsese movie. The movie is brilliant, but it is what it is. It is Scorsese’s view of this amazing event. His view was created with over a dozen cameras. So I know he shot a lot of what I’m talking about.
I would pay real money to see the outtakes from this film. Any filmmaker/rock ‘n’ roll royalty who know how to access this stuff, anybody in the Scorsese circle? Man it would make for quite an interesting footnote to this event, to see some of those outtakes.
Eric Clapton playing unplugged guitar during final jam.
for the grand finale, Graham was racing all about, and literally pushing, controlling, encouraging all of the players to get onto the increasingly shrinking stage. It was hilarious. I remember him pushing Ron Wood out on the stage and elbowing a few other people. And then he went over to Eric Clapton, picked him up from behind and carried him out onto stage unceremoniously standing there, looking somewhere between bemused and annoyed. Graham leapt over, grabbed a guitar, stuffed it into Clapton’s hands and crouched in front of him, throwing his hands up towards the guitar, much like Leonard Bernstein directing a symphony and screaming, although I could not hear him, but I could see his mouth moving “play Play PLAY!!!!” Oh, by the way, the guitar was not plugged into the amp.
Governor Jerry Brown, and, at that time the hottest women in the country Linda Ronstadt.
Jerry and Linda were the most famous couple in America at the time. Songstress Linda Ronstadt broke the heart of every man in the country who couldn’t be with her. So talented politician, but annoying pratt Jerry Brown was basically the luckiest guy in America. They were backstage, stage left towards the end of the show. I noticed them at one point and it was absolutely 100% them. I’ve never seen a reference to them being at the show. Admittedly I haven’t done deep dives into the Internet. But they were there, trust me. They were no more than maybe 50 feet away from me. Brown had his arm over her shoulder and watched with what seem to be distaste as Graham picked up Eric Clapton, and threw him on stage. Immediately after that, Graham spun around, saw the stylish couple and started running towards them hands out obviously planning to drag them out on stage. Jerry Brown gave him the most powerful and evil stink eye I have ever seen anybody deploy. Graham, who was under an enormous amount of forward thrust heading towards them, jerked him self to a halt almost falling on his face, bowed down almost to the ground, and started waving his hands down to the ground over and over again in obeisance to Brown and backed away from them like a whipped dog.
I bought that ticket and I was at that show.
Not too long afterwards Terry said he had a ticket for an English band called the Sex Pistols at the same venue, Winterland. I had read something about a really unpleasant British band that would spit on their audiences. I thought about it hard. They were a novelty act from what I could tell and maybe worth seeing for the novelty appeal. But after careful deliberation, I decided that six dollars was way too much to pay to have somebody try and spit on me. So I passed on that ticket.
In a lifetime of fun and adventure, I have very few regrets……….
movie release 2023
Neil Young coke booger
Set list & Neil Young booger
Black and white photos from the Chronicle
The Night They Drove Ol Dixie Down
Paul Butterfield
Robbie Robertson, and Eric Clapton trading guitar licks
Van Morrison
Grand finale. Big mess.
illicit film shot from audience
two videos on YouTube
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