ROCK CONCERT
An Oral History as Told by the Artists, Backstage Insiders, and Fans Who Were There
by Marc Myers
A multifaceted account of the rise of the rock show from the birth of the genre until Live Aid in 1985.
In the beginning, writes music journalist Myers, the rock concert was an impromptu affair. Songwriter Mike Stoller recalls that in the 1940s and ’50s, nightclubs staged shows with several acts on the ticket, and DJs would do same-day announcements when they came together. “White kids who otherwise never would have heard of these events found their way there,” he notes. Black music drew ever larger White crowds thanks to those DJs, foremost among them Alan Freed in Cleveland; as they did, the limits of segregation were tested. Wanda Jackson, the pioneering rockabilly singer, remembers that in the South, the most spacious venues were state fairs, but eventually, rock shows began to move into concert halls once reserved for higher-toned music. There, acts like the Beach Boys could draw huge (and largely White) crowds. As audiences grew, music marathons such as the Monterey Pop Festival of 1967 began to take shape. Then the music changed, at least by the lights of documentarian D.A. Pennebaker. Whereas Broadway tunes were about the notion that life is good, he notes, rock tunes sounded change: “They were saying, ‘This isn’t friendly music. It’s a warning.’ Which is why the cameras in Monterey Pop[Pennebaker’s documentary] gravitate toward the oddness of the concert with a childlike curiosity.” Myers charts the technological changes as well: the development of vast PA systems that enabled concert stalwarts like the Grateful Dead to send their sound out for miles; the wireless electric guitar; and complex stage-lighting systems and props that made Pink Floyd’s The Wallan unforgettable live experience. Closing with the Live Aid benefit of 1985, Myers notes that the rock concert continued but grew sclerotic (and expensive), so that “by the 2000s, the rock concert had fizzled as a rite of passage and was more of an event parents took children along to experience.”
A revealing, absorbing book for those who keep their old ticket stubs close at hand.