Strider Posted June 15, 2011 Author Share Posted June 15, 2011 Another great read Strider. It's too bad someone spiked your drink with LSD and you don't remember much of the second part of the show. That must of been quite unique to experience an acid trip at 11 years old. Not necessarily a good experience. Love the great details in this show experience and the real drama you provided to make the read that much more interesting. Awesome! I was lucky in two respects, SuperDave...1) That I was dosed with "good" acid and not "bad" acid. Lord knows what would've happened if I'd had a bad trip; and 2) As irresponsible as my two adult escorts might have been in some respects, at least they had had experience with drugs, so they could talk to me, and reassure me and keep watch to make sure I wasn't losing my mind. Also, being of strong Irish stock, I have always been able to withstand large amounts of drug and drink. If it had been most any other band, I probably would have said to hell with it, let's go home...but I was such a Zephead even then, that I didn't want to miss a thing. Om my god, did I just quote a shite Aeroshit song? Thirty lashings for me, administered by Miss Melanie...or Deborah J...or FireOpal...or Magic in the Air...Knebby? Hell, all of you, hehehehehehehehe! Also, don't know if I mentioned it in my original post, but just the week before, the Grateful Dead played Kezar and drew a record crowd for a San Francisco show. Then Led Zeppelin played their Kezar show and broke the record the Dead had just established the week prior. I'm sure Zep's record was subsequently broken by one of the later Day on the Green's in the 70's. A question I have about the opening acts that I missed...have any of their sets been booted? I'm particularly interested in Roy Harper and the Tubes. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ledzepfvr Posted June 16, 2011 Share Posted June 16, 2011 Om my god, did I just quote a shite Aeroshit song? Thirty lashings for me, administered by Miss Melanie...or Deborah J...or FireOpal...or Magic in the Air...Knebby? Hell, all of you, hehehehehehehehe! As you wish, consider yourself lashed. I think there are enough of us ladies here to administer a couple each. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SuperDave Posted June 16, 2011 Share Posted June 16, 2011 Thanks for more elaborations on your experience. Well, at least you made it out of the show in one piece and were able to attend the "Three Days After" show at The Forum, which was the best of the bunch. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Strider Posted June 17, 2011 Author Share Posted June 17, 2011 Thanks for more elaborations on your experience. Well, at least you made it out of the show in one piece and were able to attend the "Three Days After" show at The Forum, which was the best of the bunch. Yeah, that June 3 show was AMAZING...and probably was the "best of the bunch", as you say. I have to say, though, my ears and body took a while to recover from the onslaught of 3 Zeppelin concerts in 4 days...maybe a whole week passed before I felt completely refreshed and the ringing was gone. Anyway, due to the technical limitations of my cellphone that I used to post my reviews, I was leery of trying to post photos with my posts. You know, something to break up all that grey...and kudos to those of you who managed to read all that in one-sitting. So now I thought I would post some pertinent photos to help illustrate the review. The first photo is one of Kezar Stadium, as it appeared then, and shows how close it was to other buildings in the neighborhood. So you can just imagine in your mind how those buildings were lined with people on the roofs, or listening through their windows, the day of the show. My uncle's place was just to the right, out-of-frame of the photo. Now, here's a group of photos that illustrate the late, great PSA...Pacific Southwest Airlines...and their "Smiling" airplanes and their groovy stewerdesses. The motto of PSA was "Catch Our Smile". Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SuperDave Posted June 18, 2011 Share Posted June 18, 2011 Probably the airline that William's sister Anita was a stewardess for in "Almost Famous" was based on. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hotplant Posted June 20, 2011 Share Posted June 20, 2011 Oh, that's so sad, Hotplant. Do you remember what song you left at? You mentioned this was the last of the California shows you attended, so were you at the May 31 Forum show, too? Or the May 28 San Diego show? What prevented you from going to the June 3 Forum gig? I find it fascinating that you, me and Silver Rider...and who knows how many others here...were at the same shows all those years ago. Although I was too young to lurk around the Riot House, the Rainbow, and Rodney's English Disco then. We should all get together in 2013 at the Hyatt and reminisce. Two other things about the Kezar show that stick out in my memory... 1. How weird it was that when the concert was over, it was still light out. 2. Considering the lingering aftermath of Altamont, how generally peaceful the massive crowd was. Sure, there was drug use, public drunkenness, nudity, but there wasn't the aggression, fighting and violence there was at, say the 1976 Angel Stadium Who concert, which also drew 50,000. Just ask Silver Rider. Sorry Strider, I didn't see your question. No I don't remember what song, but I was very bummed. We had hitchhiked from SLC UT to San Diego to see more, got to San Diego as the show ENDED....found my buddies, went with them on to the Hyatt, we stayed and hitched a ride to Frisco the day before Kezar. At that time I lived in SLC so my girlfriend was just tired of being my "bodyguard" and was whining to go home. No way was I going to hitch alone so I had to go with her. We did Not have tickets or passes to Kezar so we were in fact two of the "rooftoppers," only we were able to see from someones apartment hallway window. We did some barhopping, myself having a phony ID, The Whisky, The Rainbow, and another I can't recall but not Rodney's. A party at the Hyatt would be awesome! I was just lucky, I was never one of the "in crowd" just a case of in the right place at the right time and my only experience with the guys. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Silver Rider Posted June 21, 2011 Share Posted June 21, 2011 Oh, that's so sad, Hotplant. Do you remember what song you left at? You mentioned this was the last of the California shows you attended, so were you at the May 31 Forum show, too? Or the May 28 San Diego show? What prevented you from going to the June 3 Forum gig? I find it fascinating that you, me and Silver Rider...and who knows how many others here...were at the same shows all those years ago. Although I was too young to lurk around the Riot House, the Rainbow, and Rodney's English Disco then. We should all get together in 2013 at the Hyatt and reminisce. Two other things about the Kezar show that stick out in my memory... 1. How weird it was that when the concert was over, it was still light out. 2. Considering the lingering aftermath of Altamont, how generally peaceful the massive crowd was. Sure, there was drug use, public drunkenness, nudity, but there wasn't the aggression, fighting and violence there was at, say the 1976 Angel Stadium Who concert, which also drew 50,000. Just ask Silver Rider. Angel Stadium was a zoo for the Who concert. I don't remember fighting and violence, but the crowd booed Emmylou Harris, probably because they were anxious to see the Who. As far as the audience was concerned, Emmylou Harris was clogging up the stage, interfering with progress and wasting valuable performance time. They were http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OO38rf1m0FU. I went to the San Diego show on Monday, and then the Los Angeles show on Saturday, when I wandered over to the Hyatt. I last visited the Hyatt in 1977, when the hallways were eerily quiet. I did not attend the San Francisco show in 1973. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Texas Melanie Posted June 21, 2011 Share Posted June 21, 2011 I was lucky in two respects, SuperDave...1) That I was dosed with "good" acid and not "bad" acid. Lord knows what would've happened if I'd had a bad trip; and 2) As irresponsible as my two adult escorts might have been in some respects, at least they had had experience with drugs, so they could talk to me, and reassure me and keep watch to make sure I wasn't losing my mind. Also, being of strong Irish stock, I have always been able to withstand large amounts of drug and drink. If it had been most any other band, I probably would have said to hell with it, let's go home...but I was such a Zephead even then, that I didn't want to miss a thing. Om my god, did I just quote a shite Aeroshit song? Thirty lashings for me, administered by Miss Melanie...or Deborah J...or FireOpal...or Magic in the Air...Knebby? Hell, all of you, hehehehehehehehe! Also, don't know if I mentioned it in my original post, but just the week before, the Grateful Dead played Kezar and drew a record crowd for a San Francisco show. Then Led Zeppelin played their Kezar show and broke the record the Dead had just established the week prior. I'm sure Zep's record was subsequently broken by one of the later Day on the Green's in the 70's. A question I have about the opening acts that I missed...have any of their sets been booted? I'm particularly interested in Roy Harper and the Tubes. I heard my name. I won't lash you this time. Just don't commit that awful sin again. Strider, I just have to tell you that you saved me from madness on my travels. I saved all of your stories and when the long flights seemed to throw me into crazy boredom/claustraphobia, I read and re-read them. Thank you for sharing them with us. I am not going to lie, I am very jealous that you were able to see Zeppelin 5 times. What an amazing childhood. I would love to see a picture of you around this time. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Strider Posted June 21, 2011 Author Share Posted June 21, 2011 Thank you for sharing them with us. I am not going to lie, I am very jealous that you were able to see Zeppelin 5 times. What an amazing childhood. I would love to see a picture of you around this time. I'll try to dig one up. For the longest time, I had no pictures of my childhood. After recently reconnecting with some old family relatives, I've managed to acquire a few photos from my youth. I don't have a scanner but I'll improvise. Anyway, glad to have you back safe from your trip, and happy to keep you company during the long flight. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
badgeholder Posted June 21, 2011 Share Posted June 21, 2011 Hey, Strider, I meant to ask you - do you remember the bit with the doves? I know you were tripping and everything, so probably not, but I just wondered if you remember seeing Robert with the dove in his hand Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Strider Posted June 21, 2011 Author Share Posted June 21, 2011 Hahaha! It's funny you mentioned that. Yes, I was tripping...and as I wrote, I had a vision during Stairway's guitar solo of Jimmy floating into the sky and transforming into dozens of doves. For a long time, I thought that was just part of the trip. Then when that photo of Plant with the dove in one hand, beer in the other was published and turned into a poster, I realized the DOVES WERE REAL! But no, I don't have a specific memory of Plant holding the dove...sorry. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bouillon Posted July 24, 2011 Share Posted July 24, 2011 Hey Strider, I've just reached this show in my listening programme. I was listening to it in the car park just now while my wife did the shopping, and at some point I remembered your acid saga...so I started thinking 'Poor Strider'. When we got home, we were about a minute into The Rain Song, so I left it in the car and came to check your story again. Looks like this might have been the point at which you achieved lift-off. How weird is that??? Acid's scary enough even when you know what's coming, IMO, so I can't even begin to imagine what it's like to get spiked on your first trip, surrounded by thousands of strangers. So again: Poor Strider. Respect. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ledzepfilm Posted July 25, 2011 Share Posted July 25, 2011 Your stories want me to read more! That was awesome, it gave me a trip back into June, 1973. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Strider Posted July 25, 2011 Author Share Posted July 25, 2011 Kind of surprised me to see this thread bumped back up, and since you went through the trouble of finding and reading it, I feel I owe you guys a response. Bouillon, don't feel too bad for me. But, yes I was fortunate that in the 30-40 LSD trips I've taken in my life, I only had one bad trip. In some way, I think it was the music of Led Zeppelin that helped me through it that day in Kezar Stadium. It provided a grounding link..."okay, what's that noise? Oh right, Led Zeppelin is playing...you're at a Zeppelin concert. Dragons are not attacking and all these people are not preparing to sacrifice you to appease the dragon god." Oh, those days of my wacky, nerdy, crazy, geeky youth. And if I had a kid, would I want that child to be doing the shit I was? HELL NO! Well, probably not. I'm not a huge Drive-by Truckers fan, but they have a few songs I like, and the one time I saw them live(at the Troubadour earlier this year), the were entertaining. They have this one song I liked, I can't remember the title(I'm sure Jahfin knows), but part of the lyrics talks about the crazy stuff you did as a kid and not having any regrets...something like: "Id like to say I'm sorry, but I'm not And we lived to do a whole lotta crazy, stupid shit." Well, that's kind of how I feel about my youth. Sure, as I look back, some of the things that happened seem fucked up, but all in all, I don't think I'd change a thing. For all the bad, I have some glorious memories that I wouldn't trade for anything in the world. Which brings me to this... Your stories want me to read more! That was awesome, it gave me a trip back into June, 1973. You want more? Well, you'll get more. I have a surprise or two planned for July 29. Consider yourself warned. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bouillon Posted July 25, 2011 Share Posted July 25, 2011 In some way, I think it was the music of Led Zeppelin that helped me through it that day in Kezar Stadium. It provided a grounding link..."okay, what's that noise? Oh right, Led Zeppelin is playing...you're at a Zeppelin concert. Dragons are not attacking and all these people are not preparing to sacrifice you to appease the dragon god." Well, can I just say you're lucky you could still recognise it as LZ. The only time I ever dropped at a gig was a case of bad timing - I hadn't intended for it to kick in properly until after the show, or maybe just for the later stages, but the band was delayed I think, and it ended up completely farcical and totally unrecognisable. It seemed to me that they were playing in slow-mo, and singing in Urdu Looking fwd to your next epic! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Walter Posted June 27, 2012 Share Posted June 27, 2012 Bump, for who haven't read this....(part 2) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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