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Monday, 23 July 2007
Back in 1964 in Santa Monica California life was dozing along. The Beatles had just cracked the US market via Ed Sullivan and the Rightous Brothers were big stuff. I was going to Santa Monica City College as the default high school graduation choice. It basically legitimized still living in my parents' home in Pacific Palisades. Life was definitely not too tough. Viet Nam was not the all consuming issue it was to become quite yet, although we all had friends who were headed there. I had just finished classes for the day and it was still early. My friend Mike Manaugh said there was something going on down at the Santa Monica Civic auditorium and we should check it out. We parked our cars and headed around to the stage entrance and saw some scruffy looking young guys getting off a bus and heading in the stage door, so we jumped into their line and just looked like we were in their group, you know just another Rolling Stone. We didn’t recognize them but that guy with the big lips sure must be somebody. We got inside where there were people scattered throughout chairs in the audience down by the stage. It turned out they were waiting for their time for on-stage mike checks and run-throughs. Everyone was reasonably friendly and the atmosphere was mostly the boredom of performers waiting their turn on in the lights. I remember sitting a couple of rows behind a beautiful black girl who turned out to be Dianna Ross. I didn't try to talk to her. I was way too shy and she was way too gorgeous. We talked to many of the other performers and the ones who were the most friendly were the back up singers, especially James Brown’s Famous Flames. They were so cool and laughed at everything. We ate dinner at the buffet with them and we saw Chuck Berry across the room. We recognized so many people and there were so many we did not recognize. Our new best friends, the Flames, would tell us who the others were. We didn’t recognize the Rolling Stones members but we had heard of them, just barely. We knew most of the Motown acts by name and some by sight but the new British acts were not yet on our radar. Pretty soon the show started and we went and joined the rest of the audience as they were streaming in and finding seats. We got great seats down front and as the show started we realized we had walked into one of the biggest musical events of our young lives. It was beyond anything we could have imagined as we snuck in the stage door behind the Rolling Stones that afternoon. Below is a list I got from another web site ( http://music.msn.com/movies/movie.aspx?m=99483&mp=syn ) of the most of the great performers. We jumped and danced and screamed and went totally crazy when James Brown kept walking off the stage in his cape and then bursting back on just one more time. We loved Russell who directed the band for Joe Cocker who absolutely rocked the house. Chuck Berry, three of Motown's biggest stars (Marvin Gaye, Smokey Robinson and the Miracles, and The Supremes), two leading British Invasion acts (Gerry and the Pacemakers and Billy J. Kramer and the Dakotas), garage rock legends The Barbarians, teen angst goddess Leslie Gore, and surf music pioneers The Beach Boys and Jan & Dean (the latter of whom also served as hosts). Closing the show is a veritable "Battle of the Bands" between two of the most exciting stage acts in rock history, James Brown and his Famous Flames (Brown's dancing still inspires awe nearly 40 years later), and The Rolling Stones (who look young and green, but are already blessed with a near-deadly charisma). This is not a complete list, there were so many great acts. Some went on to huge success and others didn’t. What a day, what a night. Newer | Latest | Older |
