Standing on a metal folding chair, fourteen rows back from the large expansive stage in Chicago Stadium. A grand piano sits prominently in the middle, behind it a large drum kit, keyboards, many different guitars and an odd assortment of African percussion instruments sit on tables.  The sold-out crowd is restless and buzzing, as beach balls and balloons are batted about by the crowd.  Suddenly and without warning, the entire stadium goes dark, and simultaneously twenty thousand fans rise to their feet, scream and cheer seemingly in unison.  The sweet pungent smell of marijuana wafts all around and small yellow flames from handheld lighters flicker throughout the stadium like fireflies dancing on a summer night.  Billowing white fog engulfs the stage, purple lights come on with the sound of wind blowing, church bells ring, and the first deep synthesizer notes of Funeral for a Friend pierce the air and reverberate through my body.  Appearing out of the fog and purple lights, sitting behind the piano, wearing large rhinestone glasses, and a feathered boa is Elton John – it is 1974, I’m in 7th grade, and I’m hooked.

 

Growing up in the 1960’s and ‘70’s I was surrounded by music – I watched my Grandpa Wissler play clarinet and saxophone in a German oom-pah-pah band comprised of fellow pathologists at the U of C.  My Dad occasionally played guitar in the spirit of Pete Seeger and Woody Guthrie, and we frequently sang Vietnam War protest and pro-union songs around campfires and during family outings.  I started viola in third grade orchestra which lasted less than a month, until I took up the drums, which better suited my high energy restless personality.  Playing the drums, I could bang and smash away on the snare drum, tom-tom, bass drum, and cymbals, with a fervor and energy to my heart’s content, and it naturally led me to the world of rock ‘n roll.

 

For six years from roughly age nine to fourteen, I lived with my family in an undergraduate college dormitory, where my Mom and Dad were Resident Heads, surrogate parents to approximately fifty-five U of C undergraduate men and later women, many whom I looked up to and idolized.  Music, specifically rock music was a consistent and dominant theme in the lives of these eighteen and nineteen-year-old college students, and so it naturally became a central interest of mine as well.  

 

In the early 1970’s nothing symbolized rock music’s growth and popularity more than hearing bands play live in large stadiums and amphitheaters.  So began my love affair with hearing live rock music that has continued for over fifty years.  There is something about hearing live music in a large venue, with all the energy and passion a large world class rock and roll band can bring.  It’s kept me feeling young, and just like the very first concert and every one since, when the lights go dark, for two plus hours of the show nothing else seems to matter.

 

Seeing Elton John during his first Goodbye Yellow Brick Road tour in November 1974, at the height of his early popularity was the start of my hearing some of the biggest and most famous bands of the 1970’s and ‘80’s.  My friend of fifty years, Alex Sagan who also loved music was the first of my friends with a stereo in his room with separate speakers, amplifier and turntable, and it is with his older brother Paul that we were able to get tickets and see live shows around the Chicago area.  My Elton John ticket was $8.50 in 1974, not an insignificant amount of money, purchased pre-internet, pre-Ticketmaster, pre-StubHub, we waited in line for hours outside the stadium in the rough and tumble West Side neighborhood that was 1800 West Madison Avenue in the 1970’s.  Luckily for me Paul and his friends who were a number of years older, did not appear to mind me and Alex tagging along with them, and he graciously even helped us obtain tickets and drove us to concerts once he got his learner’s permit and could drive.

 

July 1975:  Me, Alex, Paul and others wait in line on a humid July evening outside the Stadium, summer heat reflects off the concrete sidewalk, the crowd is restless, and an electric energy seems to flow as various street performers play, their music cases open on the ground welcoming some coins or bills for support.  There is a carnival like atmosphere in the crowd, a man walks on stilts wearing a top hat with the British flag draped around his shoulders, a woman dances off by herself eyes closed, spinning round and round seemingly lost in her own world.  I can feel this concert is different, I just don’t know yet the thrill of going to see the “Greatest Rock and Roll Band” of all time.  Two hours later, we’re sitting in the steep upper deck nosebleed section of Chicago Stadium, on a hard red colored wooden folding chair. The Blackhawks Stanley Cup banner from 1961, the year before I was born, hangs from the ceiling.  After waiting more than an hour past the scheduled start time, balloons and beach balls float above the crowd and a marijuana joint is passed along the row of strangers sitting elbow to elbow.  A portly man with a top hat and long coat in the Union Jack colors walks out onto the stage and announces in a British accent, “Ladies and Gentlemen The Rolling Stones”, the stadium lights go out, yellow lights flicker in the crowd, the whole place erupts.  The show starts with the large stage, shaped like a five-pointed star with each of the five points folded up towards the center. The giant stage shaped like flower petals starts to open as Copeland’s “Fanfare for the Common Man” plays, and then the iconic opening cow bell and drum beat signals Keith Richard’s 1950’s Telecaster guitar as he rips out the opening cords to Honky Tonk Women, and away we go.  

 

My ticket to see the Rolling Stones in 1975 cost $9.50, the legendary Billy Preston played keyboards with the Stones this tour, at one point Mick Jagger, then 32 years old, actually swung on a rope out over the crowd.  Up to this point, I had only glimpsed photos of Mick Jagger and the Stones from album covers and in magazines; seeing them live in person was very exciting. This was pre-internet, pre-MTV. I will never forget seeing the Rolling Stones in person for the first time.

 

Although seeing Elton John and his band live was a great introduction to a live rock concert, it was seeing the Rolling Stones and others live at Chicago Stadium in 1975 that really set the hook for me as these were the large British mega-bands who set the mark for everything else that followed the 1970’s rock and roll scene.

 

December 1975, back at Chicago Stadium with Alex, Paul and some of his high school friends, in seats at the back of the stadium farthest from the stage - the band and their instruments tiny in the distance - but you could certainly hear, because The Who were loud! Roger Daltry shirtless and lithe as he swung the microphone in a large whirlwind motion between vocals, Pete Townsend jumping and kicking as he wielded his Fender Stratocaster guitar over his head like an axe, and the Who’s legendary drummer Keith Moon sitting behind an enormous drum kit, complete with a massive gong, played his heart out. Tragically he would be dead from a drug overdose three years later.  The Who, one of the most influential rock groups of the 1960’s and ‘70’s, were very physical on stage, almost violent in their delivery and attitude, flirting with their British punk roots that early in their career resulted in them smashing their instruments on stage after a show.  Now The Who blended their iconic sound in Baba O’Riley and Who’s Next with a dazzling laser light show and songs from their recent rock opera “Tommy”; this made seeing the Who live into quite an experience.

 

On a hot July weekend in 1978, friends and I slept outside Soldier Field with General Admission tickets to see the Stones, who were opened by Journey and reggae legend Peter Tosh for the day-long outdoor music festival.  I would continue to see live music for the rest of my life: Carlos Santana, Bono and U2, Prince, the Grateful Dead, Bruce Springsteen, Elton John and the Rolling Stones on many occasions.  Regretfully, I also missed seeing some of the great live bands during the 1970’s and ‘80’s like the Beatles, Jimi Hendrix, Dire Straits, Bob Marley and the Wailers, or Led Zeppelin, but as Mick famously sang  – “You Can’t Always Get What you Want…”.  Having just seen the Rolling Stones perform a two-hour concert a month ago in Minneapolis during their No Filter Tour, I can honestly say they sounded almost as good as the first time in 1975.  Really quite amazing since Keith Richards should be dead many times over, their legendary drummer Charlie Watts died in August and Mick Jagger is 78 years old and has had heart surgery. 

 

So, my love affair with hearing live rock music has continued for fifty years.  It keeps me feeling young, and just like my very first Elton John concert at the Stadium, and every live show since, when the lights go dark, and the crowd roars, for a while, nothing else seems to matter.