Back in the sixties and seventies it was not uncommon for smaller rock venues to have two shows a night. During this time most of the rock bands tours stopped at these smaller venues. This was generally theatre type places with around 3000 seats. There were also smaller clubs that might hold anywhere from 200 to 500 people. For economic and logistical reasons (ticket demand) these smaller places had an early and a late show.
There were three places in New York City that dominated this scene. From 1968 until 1971 the premier showcase for rock (and other musical genres[1]) was the 2700 seat Fillmore East run by the legendary impresario Bill Graham[2]. It was known for its great acoustics and psychodelic light show. Some of the great live albums of the time were recorded at the late shows where bands didn’t have the time constraints of the early show. The Allman Brothers “At Fillmore East”, Derek and the Dominoes “In Concert” and Jimi Hendrix “Bank of Gypsies” to name a few that were second show recordings. All the popular bands on the concert circuit coming through New York City would play the Fillmore East.
The other popular theatre venue in NYC was the Academy of Music[3] which was re-branded in 1976 as The Palladium. The Band recorded their legendary live album “Rock of Ages” there in a series of concerts around New Year’s 1970/71. It became the main concert spot in New York City after the Fillmore East closed in 1971. Especially since Bill Graham stipulated that acts performing at his venue were prohibited from performing at any other theatre with 75 miles for the following four months. I saw Traffic there on their last tour in 1974 (early show).
Then there was the Bottom Line in Greenwich Village; a 400 seat club that served drinks and dinner that opened in 1974. The most famous run there being Bruce Springsteen in August 1975 doing ten shows over five nights just before the release of “Born to Run”. Rent increases drove the club out of business in 2004
Outside of Manhattan there was the 3,200 seat Capital Theatre in Passaic, NJ. The Capital, which opened in October 1971, also benefited from the departure from the area of the iron-fisted Bill Graham and his 45 day no other show clause. John Scher, a young NJ rock promoter, seeing an opportunity after the Fillmore East closed, bought the Capital, which was operating at that time as an adult movie theatre, and transformed it into a rock venue until 1989 when it closed.
The Fillmore East was just before my time so I never saw any shows there. It was re-branded for a while after it closed as NFE Theatre (standing for New Fillmore East). My friends and I went to the opening night in December 1974 to see The Bachman Turner Overdrive, who was very popular at the time with their hit “Taking Care of Business’. The interesting thing about that show was there were two other bands on the bill and the group that opened was Bob Seger and The Silver Bullet Band (pre-Night Moves breakout). We paid little attention – if we only knew! I did however have the chance to take in a few late shows in my time.
The Greg Allman Band, Capital Theatre, Passaic, NJ, April 1974. Gregg Allman had just released his first solo album “Laid Back” in late 1973. Sometime in the late winter one of my close friends got tickets to see him in April on his solo tour. I was 15 at the time so there were only two catches to this seemingly good fortune: the show was at the Capital Theatre and it was a midnight show. The Capital Theatre happened to be in Passaic, a notoriously run-down, moderately crime-ridden small NJ city. This was not really the place suburbanites in their early teens should be walking around at all, let alone late at night. Being only 15 at the time negotiating a late show in Passaic would be tricky. Passaic, from a safety perspective, was only slightly above Newark, the standard by which all urban undesirability was measured. My friend’s older brother would be the driver and perhaps that helped to get the greenlight from my parents. I remember this from the show: it was still cold for early April, we had good seats in the balcony and Allman played with an orchestra. The show was also recorded and some of the performances were included on a live album of the tour.
Neil Young and Crazy Horse, The Palladium, NYC, November 1976. I wrote an essay about this show already so I won’t go into too much about it here. For those who may remember that post getting a ride to the show was also a big variable. It was the only late show in a three day run that was added because of the strong demand. Second shows were beginning to fade by this time though there were a number of late shows on this tour (e.g., Boston and Atlanta). This is one of my top five concerts.[4]
J.D. Souther, The Bottom Line, NYC, November 1979. I came up from college in Pennsylvania with my roommate to see this show. Souther was touring his (only) hit album, “You’re Only Lonely”. I had been a fan since buying “Black Rose”, his second album, my senior year in high school.[5]Souther, one of the founding fathers of the seventies Southern California rock scene, is probably best known for co-writing some of the The Eagles biggest hits.
Warren Zevon, The Bottom Line, NYC, February 1983. I had already seen Zevon twice in and around Philadelphia when I was in college but took in this late show with my future wife. Why we chose the late show I’m not sure since we were both working full-time jobs. Zevon was touring behind “The Envoy” album. Having already seen him at this peak in the seventies I’m also not sure why we decided to brave the late night February cold for this show.[6]
Starting in the early seventies the rock concert industry began to move more and more to sports arenas, like New York City’s Madison Square Garden, and to sports stadiums, like New Jersey’s Meadowlands. These venues could hold up 20,000 (and the stadiums much more). More money, fewer shows, etc. The sound quality and intimacy of the smaller venues were sacrificed for the economics of the larger venues. This is what drove Bill Graham to close his Fillmore venues in 1971. The other theatres and clubs mentioned above hung on but eventually went out of business and closed.
Also in the mid-seventies, the larger outdoor covered arenas (“sheds”), like The Garden State Arts Center in Holmdel, NJ., began dominating the rock and pop summer tour schedule. In the early seventies, before the Arts Center, Roosevelt Stadium, an old minor league baseball stadium, in Jersey City, NJ was the summer stop for all the big rock bands. It felt like going to a late show because many of the concerts went well past midnight.[7] Jersey City was a little rough around the edges back then. The stadium was a dump and the security was almost non-existent (I was on line once waiting to get in and there was a guy behind me with a keg on a hand truck). When the Arts Center was built Roosevelt Stadium fell out of the rotation and was torn down not much later.
These days there are still many small venues in New York City. Places like the Bowery Ballroom, Webster Hall and Town Hall are still popular spots for up and coming artists. The big bands don’t stop at these places anymore and there are no late shows. As for the theatres there is really just The Beacon which still attracts some name acts but the really big artists are still exclusively playing the arenas and stadiums. Outside the city there is the recently refurbished The Capital Theatre in Port Chester, NY. It is a beautiful place to see a show (see last year’s Bob Dylan post). For places like the Beacon and The Capital there are no longer late shows. Artists now do residencies like the Allman Brothers annual March stand at that Beacon in the early 2000’s.
[1] In March 1970 Neil Young and Crazy Horse were paired on the bill with Miles Davis.
[2] Graham also ran a number of venues in San Francisco including The Fillmore West and Winterland.
[3] It was such a skeevy place that it was nicknamed the Academy of Mucous.
[4] The other four being: Led Zeppelin at The Nassau Coliseum, February 1975; Bruce Springsteen at The Providence Civic Center, December 1981; U2 at the Meadowlands Arena, September 1987 and; REM at the Beacon Theatre, July 1984. Honorable Mention: Jackson Browne at the Garden State Arts Center, July 1978.
[5] “You’re Only Lonely” was his third album. I sort of stole his 1972 self-titled debut from my college radio station where my roommate was a late-night DJ (“watch that dead air!”). I borrowed it and just never returned so there wasn’t an intent to steal. JD took his time between releases. The next one would be in 1984 and then nothing until 2008!
[6] The better small venue show that my wife and I took in, though not a late show, was at the Lone Star Café in March 1987 to see JD Souther and Karla Bonoff.
[7] I saw the Allman Brothers there in the summer of 1974 and the show was still going when I left around 1:30am.
