Remembering California Jam (1974) — When Rock Bands Were Gods
50 YEARS AGO: REMEMBERING “CALIFORNIA JAM” (1974)
I was way too young to remember Woodstock in the year 1969. Fact is, a number of “Woodstockesque” mega-concerts were held that summer of great music scattered throughout the country. But the hastily-planned rock festival in upstate New York stole all the media attention, and was later idolized in a classic movie.
This all happened despite a few concerts elsewhere that were probably better. Consider the stellar lineup for the long-forgotten 1969 Atlanta International Pop Festival (which took place six weeks before Woodstock) and the Texas International Music Festival near Dallas (which took place three weeks after Woodstock). Each festival drew 150,000 concertgoers and included arguably a superior bill of performers over a three-day schedule. Unfortunately, no movie or TV cameras were rolling in Atlanta or Dallas, so everyone now forgets them and only remembers Woodstock (and the Monterey Pop Festival, from two years prior, which was also made into a movie).
Lucky for us, there were plenty of cameras around nearly five years later when California Jam happened at the Ontario Motor Speedway near Los Angeles in April of 1974. That was the first rock concert I can remember ever watching on television and listening to on the radio. To say the experience changed me would be an understatement. While I wasn’t there in person, television and radio allowed every teenager and rock music fan to BE THERE. Then and there, we found our religion. Rock bands were gods.
Who else remembers Don Kirshner’s Rock Concert and The Midnight Special being the only shows that regularly featured rock on TV? (American Bandstand was still around, as was Soul Train, but those shows weren’t focused on rock bands). This was way before YouTube videos were around. It was nearly a decade before MTV debuted. So, watching TV on late Friday nights was the ONLY place to see rock n’ roll, unless you bought a ticket and went to the concerts. Somehow, I think this rarity and the exclusive mode of broadcasting and distribution contributed largely to the mystery and mythology of rock acts.
California Jam was shown on a TV show called the In Concert series on ABC. The audio portion of the show was also broadcast live in stereo on FM radio stations across the country. So, even though there were reportedly about 250,000 in attendance, millions actually listened and watched, making it perhaps the biggest audience for a rock concert until “Live Aid” blew everybody away in 1985.
The California Jam lineup was excellent, but still could have been better. It wasn’t even close to the list of acts that performed at Atlanta, Woodstock (Bethel), and Dallas. Still, California Jam featured some major rockers and top pop acts of the day– including Rare Earth, Earth, Wind & Fire, the Eagles, Jackson Browne, Seals and Crofts, Black Oak Arkansas, Black Sabbath, Deep Purple, and Emerson, Lake & Palmer. Hard to believe, but the concert was MC’d by New York DJ Don Imus.
What I remember most about California Jam was being both upset and jealous. I wished those mega-shows would come closer and I could go. Fortunately, that’s exactly what happened five years later when Texxas Jam was held at the Cotton Bowl in Dallas, which was my first large stadium show.
For most of us who experienced these spectacles, they were eye-opening and life-changing events. Today, mega-concerts still happen. But they seem so heavily corporatized. They also cost hundreds if not thousands of dollars to get in, and then seating is segregated by class. Back then, it cost $10 to get in and you got to see all the bands. The audience was *one.* We were all miserable, and in ecstasy. Yeah, the conditions were appalling, but everyone who went usually thinks of those concerts as the best times of their lives.
Happy 50th Birthday, California Jam.
