"History doesn't repeat itself, but it often rhymes." - Mark Twain (allegedly)
Two recent news headlines sent me
into the Mr. Peabody's Wayback Machine.
The first was about legendary
rock band The Who performing concerts at the Hollywood Bowl this coming August, as part of their 2025 North American Farewell Tour.
The other was a story about the
aftermath of their 1976 concert at Anaheim Stadium in Southern California. Shortly
after that show, the stadium's Groundskeeper was surprised to find over a
hundred small marijuana plants sprouting in the outfield, the result
of seeds dropped on the turf by concert goers.
At the time, stadium officials
joked that the economic situation at the stadium was not so bad that they
needed to start growing marijuana.
I attended that 1976 concert by The Who at Anaheim Stadium.
During my second year of junior
college in March of '76, a classmate named Steve mentioned that he'd
bought Who tickets for himself and several friends. One of them had flaked
out and do I wanna buy the ticket? The $10 price was right so YEAH. The show would be headlined by The Who,
supported by The Steve Gibbons Band, Little Feat and Rufus featuring Chaka Khaaaaan.
THE SET-UP
The night before the show, five
of us met up at Steve's house at 9pm, jumped into a large station wagon and drove
to Anaheim. Suitably high, we landed in the parking lot and got in line behind hundreds of others. The gates
would open at 6am and the concert would start at 6pm.
My canvas backpack held bananas, a Hickory Farms summer sausage, three joints, matches, binoculars, a pocketknife, and a leather bota bag filled with Mad Dog - Mogen David MD 20/20 fortified Red Grape wine, a college favorite. Bottled water wasn't a thing in the old days.
The first few hours of waiting in
line were cool, with everyone partying, hitting on each other and hanging
out to see THE WHO, MAAAAAN!! Around 3am, a guy who'd been drinking
Screwdrivers out of a plastic gallon jug began to spin in circles while
projectile vomiting, spraying a 10-foot circle of boozy puke on everyone around him. Luckily,
we were 15 feet away.
When the gates opened at 6am sharp, thousands of people poured
out of the parking lot and swarmed the gates, so we became just a part of the mass pushing to get in.
It took us almost 2 hours to get
within eyeshot of the gates. Everyone was being searched
as they went through, with lots of alcohol and drugs being confiscated and
tossed into dumpsters. Right before they reached the gate, people would take a final chug of booze out of an
alcohol-filled gallon jug, then hand it overhead to those behind them. It was
hilarious to see dozens of jugs being passed back to waiting hands, over and over as they got closer to the gates. The jugs seemed to float over the crowd.
My backpack had the bota bag and
joints in the bottom and my flannel, the food and other stuff on top. Lucky for
me the Security Dude only glanced inside and passed me through. When I
finally got in, I'd been separated from my group. I wouldn't see them
again until after the show when we gathered at the wagon for the drive home.
The Concourse was jammed with people streaming towards the field for a spot as close to the stage as possible, located at the wall in Center Field. I didn’t want to spend all day in that mess, so I scoped out a great vantage point on the second-level grandstand tier, right behind Home Plate, with a perfect view of the whole place. This seating choice would prove to be super-smart.
After a squirt of Mad Dog, a toke and a snackie, I settled in for a very long day. I scanned the crowd to try and find my group, but it was pointless. Far better was scoping out all the cute girls, watching the circus and staying high all day.
SNAPSHOTS
One: It became obvious
that most of the people around me were winging it. They ran out of money right away because the beer and hot dogs were expensive, so they'd walk around begging for food. I was
glad to have a bunch of bananas, and the summer sausage was a perfect protein to accompany the fine wine. I made sure not to flash my grub stash to entice beggars, but I shared my joints. There
were always lit fatties being passed around to help maintain a constant Gumby head from so many different kinds of weed.
Two: Early that afternoon while scanning the mass of humanity on the field, I noticed a long-haired dude leaning heavily on a barricade next to a row of outhouses. He was wearing only shorts and sandals; his head was hanging down and he seemed to be very wasted. After a bit I noticed that he’d fallen to the ground. For the next two hours, I saw him there on his back, seemingly unconscious and broiling in the sun, with people stepping over him as if he didn’t exist. Finally, someone noticed he wasn’t moving, and he was carted off in a stretcher by paramedics, who had to push through the crowd to get to him and then push their way out.
Three: A few hours
before the show began, I went to find a bathroom, finding only crowds of people and long lines. I kept looking and found one
with a short line that seemed to take forever. Once inside, we saw the
urinals were clogged and overflowing. People in some
of the stalls were doing drugs and fucking, not even bothering to close the stall
doors. A guy in line yelled SCREW THIS!, dropped his pants, took a dump in
one of the sinks, splashed water on his ass and left. OK then… I pissed in an
open sink and left too.
Four: The show started with a forgettable set by The Steve Gibbons
Band, a UK-based group. Little Feat sounded good but seemed out-of-place
in a stadium venue. Rufus with Chaka
Khaaaaaan were brilliant and had the crowd dancing, waving
their arms and singing along to their mega hit ‘Tell Me Something Good’. I
watched their entire set with the binoculars and Chaka Khaaaaaan was a
great stage presence in paisley bell bottoms, feather boas and a huge Natural hairdo tinted red.
Five: When the Who finally hit the stage, the place erupted in a frenzy. Fans were holding up signs
that read ‘BEHIND BLUE EYES’ and screaming that request between each song, but the band never did play it... I wonder why? Dozens of people tried to climb the
stage, only to be grabbed by Security goons and hustled off to the sides. When the band broke into ‘Won’t Get
Fooled Again’, the whole stadium seemed to be shaking. Our
grandstand tier began to slowly bounce up and down because so many people were jumping up and down to the beat.
I was in the first row of seats at the handrail and watched the rail move up and down almost a foot. YEAH… NO. I scrambled up to the mezzanine, where the gap between the concrete tier and mezzanine floor also opened and closed. I watched the rest of the show from the mezzanine, convinced the whole tier would collapse. It didn’t.
I was sailing in a blur of weed smoke, Mad Dog and rock music.
EPILOGUE
When the Who’s set ended, the hordes began to leave the stadium. It took me about an hour to get to the
wagon, and soon all the others found it too. Steve was angry that I’d
separated from the group, claiming that I’d ditched them on purpose. We all
crashed out on the drive back and then he was mad about being the only one awake in
the car.
It took almost a week for my gut to recuperate from eating all those bananas and a whole summer sausage
in one day. You’d think the Mad Dog grape wine would be a good natural laxative but
noooooooooooo.
I’d gone to a few other big concerts while
in college, notably Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention, Todd Rudgren’s
Utopia and Alice Cooper. The New Year’s Eve Zappa show was great; the
ushers in the stands took our booze bottles and emptied the contents into large
plastic cups so we wouldn’t hurt anyone.
The Rundgren show was a surprise. His guitarist had an injured hand, so it was announced their set would be given over to Dr. John, who turned in a really cool performance.
Alice Cooper’s show was loud and fun and weird. He was guillotined on-stage for the final encore.
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